Love Lies Bleeding
by gray seal
Summary: "Erik?" she called out uncertainly, then realized what was wrong. He was gone. Gone. Her angel was dead... but then he woke up, and even though she thought her life was forever changed, it changed yet again. Leroux, E/C
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I do not own _The Phantom of the Opera_

This fic is based largely off of Leroux. No Kay, no Webber. Leroux. Any qualms, go talk to my manager.

**Note: This chapter has been revised because it was awful and desperately needed it.**

* * *

Chapter 1

For Christine, intense and passionate love was much too frightening for her. She feared it and shied away from it, as a frightened doe would at a blazing fire that threatened to consume her. When Erik first showed himself to her and proclaimed his undying love to her, she felt the intensity of it flowing off of him in droves, and such a strange and new thing was unnerving for her. The more passionate and controlling he became, the more she sought out for Raoul's patient, safe, and solid love. She felt sheltered by him, whereas with Erik, she felt utterly exposed—a victim to his wrath.

And now they were here.

She was petrified.

Before her, Erik paced and stormed like a thundering god. He was impatient for her to answer.

Turn the scorpion, they would all live, and she would be Erik's living wife, forever imprisoned to his madness.

Turn the grasshopper, and it would hop, hop, hop! Explode and destroy everyone within a kilometer. Not just suicide, but she would have on her hands the death of hundreds, perhaps even thousands of people. God would see the blood on her, and she would have no place in his kingdom.

But to spend the rest of her life with Erik? That was pure madness. She only hoped that God would judge him accordingly, even though she was afraid to tell it to his face.

"_Five minutes!_" Erik barked. "Five minutes, and I will turn the grasshopper for you!"

Christine knew what she had to do, and yet she stalled. She wanted these last few moments of freedom before she was forever bound to the embodiment of madness. If she could hate him as Raoul could, now would be that time.

Raoul, in the confusion, begged her to turn the scorpion. "_Don't allow the monster to kill all of those innocent people!_" he pleaded. "_Don't let him kill us!"_ He seemed inconsolable, and in the face of such imminent disaster, Christine wondered if he had forgotten that the scorpion would marry her off to Erik.

On the other hand, the Persian was asking her to stay her hand. It was a trap, he said. The scorpion was the grasshopper, and the grasshopper was the scorpion. One could never be sure with Erik.

She shivered at this thought, and sought to verify it with Erik.

"Turn the scorpion," he said, "and we will hop to our wedding!"

"Aha!" she cried, noting his choice of words. "You said 'hop!'"

"Christine," he sighed. "I would not deceive you. I said we would hop to our wedding, not to our deaths. The grasshopper destroys. Remember the plagues of Egypt."

"But scorpions kill, Erik!" she reasoned. "Grasshoppers are harmless!"

He chuckled wryly. "Ingenious child. In Persia, grasshoppers are an omen of evil. They come in swarms and destroy their crops. When they come, there is no protecting the fields. The scorpion, however, counters the evil of the grasshopper. At our wedding, the scorpion will smile on us and protect us."

It did not make sense to her, but it was a risk she was willing to make, even if the Persian was still wary of his words. If the scorpion was the grasshopper, she would not be guilty of Erik's deceit. If the scorpion was the scorpion, however, then it was safe. The Parisian people would be safe, her friends would be safe, the Persian would be safe, and most importantly, Raoul would be safe.

It was worth the sacrifice.

So she told herself.

It was a different matter entirely, telling her hand to turn the figurine.

"Your time is up."

The words dropped like stones.

Now would be a good time to turn it, Christine!

Her hand couldn't move.

"You won't have Erik? You won't have the scorpion?"

Her eyes were riveted to his face of death and saw the disappointment and shame in the cavities of his eyes. Up until that moment, she supposed, he had held on to those last vestiges of hope that he was perhaps more desirable than death, that she would fulfill his passions and his dreams for a normal life. Her not having chosen anything dashed those hopes to the ground.

She was cruel.

"I will turn the grasshopper, then," he said sorrowfully.

"Erik," she whispered.

"Enough!" he roared, turning on her. "You will not have me! You choose death!"

But even as he spoke, she gripped the scorpion and turned. For a moment, everything was deathly still. She waited for something – his tears, Raoul and the Persian crying out in pain, an explosion – anything that would tell her that it was all over, but there was nothing.

Her eyes scrunched tight. Waiting.

When she opened them again, she saw Erik's hand resting on the grasshopper, his eyes wide and staring at her as if he could not believe all that had transpired. The air hissed between them.

The grasshopper frightened her, and she wished he would let go.

"Erik," she said. "I have turned the scorpion. I choose you."

His hand tightened on the grasshopper.

With a cry of alarm, she leapt upon him in an effort to tear him away from the grasshopper. In a flurry of skirts and limbs, she took hold of his arms, and like a wild animal, he twisted out of her grip and threw her to the ground. He stood above her, panting.

She was relentless, afraid that he would still kill them all. "Erik, I choose the scorpion and all that it entails," she said in a low voice.

He opened his mouth in surprise and gaped like a fish. "You would marry your poor Erik?" he managed.

She nodded, and like a snake, he shot forward and pulled her from the ground and half dragged her into her room.

"You will dress, and then we will marry," he said impartially.

The door closed behind him, but Christine hardly noticed. A white dress, one she had never seen before, lay innocently on her bed. Slowly, mechanically, she prepared for her wedding as if she were dressing for someone's funeral, and in a way, she was. She could think of nothing that was more tragic than marrying Erik. She wondered if, once Erik was safely away at the church, if she could refuse him at the altar. After all, once they were at the church, Erik could not blow up the entire Opera House, and Raoul would be safely out of his wrath.

Her ears roared, like a great rushing river, and if she could not maintain her control, she highly doubted that she could make it out of the door. She hoped that everything would go according to plan. Perhaps the preacher would help her, call the gendarmes and retain the beast. Perhaps she could be free!

She heard a sound in the torture chamber, and she was shook out of her thoughts, and a new horror overcame her.

"Erik!"

The Persian, she thought distantly. They were still here. Erik could kill them!

"Erik! There is enough water for the gunpowder! Turn off the tap! Turn off the tap!"

_Water?_ What water?

Then she realized that the roaring in her ears was real. She could hear the rushing of water behind the walls and the dark stain on the carpet below the window. Water was leaking out of the torture chamber – how much was in there?

She stood there dumbly until she heard Raoul take up the chorus in calling for help.

"Christine! Help us! The water is up to our knees!"

His plea moved her into action, and she flew out of her room to cry for Erik.

"Erik, they are drowning in there! Turn off the water!"

He looked up at her, surprised.

"Who is drowning, dear?"

"The Persian!" she cried exasperated. "Raoul! You need to help them!"

He shook his head slowly. "It is not my fault that they fell into the chamber. They didn't have to come here. Their deaths are of no importance to me."

"Erik, I will not have their deaths upon my conscience. Help them!"

"Really, Christine. They killed themselves by climbing into the torture chamber. Their deaths would be no more your fault than it would be mine."

"Erik, I will not marry you if you don't help them."

"Then all of Paris will burn," he said, his eyes flashing, his voice desperate. "You _will _be my wife! You turned the scorpion!"

She flinched back. "Alright, I will be your wife," she said, standing down. "But I will not consummate the marriage if you do not help them."

They both froze at her ultimatum. She wondered if Erik would have expected that from her, or if this was enough to bribe him to do what she wanted from him. He looked as though his world had been overturned.

"You would…" He sounded dazed. "With Erik. Living wife in every way."

In one smooth movement, he took the scorpion and turned it again.

* * *

He pulled the two unfortunates, unconscious, out of the torture chamber, which was filled with water and was drowning them. She had tried to rush to Raoul, but Erik held her back and hissed dangerously in her ear.

"If you touch him, if you refuse to marry me, the boy will die."

Eventually, she let him drag her away from the room, out of the house on the lake, out of the Opera House. By the time they reached the church, she felt as if she were already dead. She could feel nothing except for the horrible coldness and emptiness within her. Once they stood at the altar together, she could not refuse Erik when the dreaded question came. Her reply came slowly and softly, so softly the priest did not hear her. He asked her again, and she could feel Erik's eyes burning into her.

She avoided his intense gaze for fear that he would see the tears threatening to spill over. In a quivering and fearful voice, she repeated her answer once more, forever binding herself to the monster beside her.

"_I do."_

The ceremony was finished quickly, and Erik took her back down to his underworld. She did not fight—she did not resist him. He took her into the music room and stood her next to his organ and he sat at the instrument and played his mass to her. The music made her cry, but she cried quietly, bearing her grief in silence.

His music was beautiful. It spoke of his love for her, which was more than she could ever fathom. She could not understand it, as she was not capable of loving as he did. With a cry, she fled his room, fled from the music, from _him._ She could not stand thinking about what he would do to her that night. She ran to her room, expecting to find solace there. She had forgotten that Raoul was still there until, blinded by her tears, she tripped over his limp body. Ungracefully, she sprawled to the floor, on top of him.

With another cry of fear, she sprang back up to her feet, remembering Erik's words that Raoul would die if she touched him. Her face pale and drawn, she backed up to the wall, fearful that if she were within ten feet of him, Erik would kill him. She closed her eyes, hoping and praying that she could be delivered from this nightmare.

Something cold and hard touched her arm, and she looked up to see Erik towering above her. She did not like it when he stood so close to her; she felt tiny and powerless to his intimidating figure. A bubble of fear rose up from deep within her chest to escape through her mouth, but she bit her lip until she drew blood to keep it harbored within her.

"Are you tired of waiting? Do you wish to retire to bed with your husband?"

She could not quell the terror she felt when he said that. Of course, it was wholly expected of her; she was his wife, now, and she promised. She promised him that she would consummate the marriage if he saved Raoul and the Persian.

She shook her head, desperate to postpone it for as long as possible. "Please, Erik. Not while they are still here." She gestured to the two unconscious men lying on the floor of the Louis-Philippe room. He glanced at them annoyed, as if it were their fault that he could not enjoy his first night of marriage. He nodded stiffly, wishing that they had not returned to see them there.

"Of course, my dear," he said impassively. "They shall be taken care of shortly."

Christine stood and watched as Erik dragged the men out of her room. She remained standing, afraid of getting into the bed. She did not want to share that bed with her new husband, indeed, the husband she did not want to be married to. When Erik returned to her, he guided her to the bed and pulled at the laces on the back of her dress. Christine trembled like a leaf under his hand, and she could barely stand. She had to clutch the bedpost to keep her balance.

But, to her surprise, once the laces were untied, Erik went no further and handed her a nightgown.

"Until our visitors recover and leave us, Erik will not touch you."

Christine froze, hardly daring to believe the words he spoke. It wasn't until the door shut behind him that she allowed herself to relax, confused and heavy with relief. She could not believe her good fortune! She was mindful to thank God in her prayers before she climbed into bed that night, blessedly alone.

The next morning, she rose from her restless slumber and left the horrible bed in which she knew the worst thing in the world would soon occur. She dressed quickly and entered into the parlor where she expected Erik to be waiting for her as he usually did in the mornings.

He was there, but not alone. The two men were still there, and their bodies were reclined on the couches. Erik was hovered over the Persian, his hand at his neck as though he were checking for a pulse, when he noticed his wife standing outside of her room. He straitened and stood before her.

"They are both alive, if you want to know," he said nonchalantly, though they both knew that Christine cared very much about what happened to one man in particular. "It was easy enough to revive the boy, but it took me a while to bring daroga back."

The phrase by which he called the Persian was unfamiliar to her, and she questioned him about it.

"Erik, what is 'daroga'? What does it mean?"

Erik did not answer. Instead, he swooped out of the room, leaving her alone with the two men. She could hear him hiss angrily as he left,

"_Do not touch the boy."_

Christine shivered in response. She did not glance over at the boy for fear that even touching her gaze upon his beautiful face would give Erik enough cause to kill him. Instead, she took a book down from Erik's long bookshelf, one that was called _The Imitation of Christ_, and settled down beside a lamp to begin reading. If she could not allow herself Raoul's soft and comforting touch, then she was content enough to read about the man who suffered all things. She read until noon and stopped when Erik approached her with her lunch. He noticed the book she was reading and scoffed at her choice, but did not take it away. He sat down next to her and watched her read. Though she knew he was staring at her, she refused to look up at him. She did not want to go through the ordeal of speaking with him.

A quarter past two, they heard a moan from across the room. Christine tensed and closed her eyes, hoping against hope that it was not her love that was rousing. She did not know how she would respond if he were. Would she lose herself entirely and rush to his side if he called out to her? Would he end up dying if she could not control herself? She braced herself.

"_Christine…_" she heard his desperate voice call out to her.

She looked up immediately, but she did not direct her gaze over to him. Instead, she looked over at Erik, wondering what he would do, only to find him staring at her intently, waiting.

She did not respond to the boy. As much as she wanted to, she could not let herself be weak and risk his death because she was mindless and stupid. After he called out to her several times, Erik was obviously satisfied with her reaction and went over to the boy.

What torture! How cruel that man could be!

Christine watched him check his pulse and feel his forehead. He turned around and locked eyes with her.

"Christine," he said. "Please go get the drink that is sitting in the kitchen. It is only tea, something to help his headache."

She nodded and obeyed him. She fetched the drink without question. When she handed it to him, she didn't even ask him what the reddish-brown liquid was that he was pouring into the boy's drink. However, he could feel her inquisitive eyes on him, and he turned to her, holding the vial of liquid out to her. "Laudanum," he replied to her silent question. She sniffed at the contents and turned her head away from the sickly bitterness that filled her nose.

She retired back to the couch and returned to her book, never once glancing at Raoul. Erik would not be happy with her if she spared the boy so much as a glance. As of yet, it looked as though he would live and make it out of the monster's lair to freedom. Raoul would be free and she would be trapped in the eternal darkness with a monster.

But it would not be bad, she told herself firmly. Surely it could not be that bad. After all, Erik did promise her that he would be kind and gentle. They would leave this house on the lake to live on a flat above ground. Erik had promised. He would be gentle as a lamb, not a lion. For Christine's sake, he had to be the lamb. Otherwise, Christine did not know how she was going to survive as Erik's wife.

Several hours later, the other one woke. She had not noticed until she heard Erik speaking softly in his ear.

"Are you better, daroga?"

Christine rose from her chair to get a cup of cordial for the Persian. She did not need Erik to ask her; he wanted her to be an obedient wife, and obedient she would be. She listened to Erik speak to the poor, disoriented man.

"You are looking at my furniture? It is all I have left of my poor, unhappy mother."

He had never mentioned his mother before, and for some reason, Christine had thought that he had no mother. How could such a creature be born of a woman? What would she have done if she had a son that looked like Erik? She shivered thinking about such a prospect. She very well might have a son like Erik; monsters would surround her as long as she should live.

Erik chattered on, talking about his wife and how good she was. She has been nothing but obedient since she had asked him to pull the two men away from their deaths. Yes, the Vicomte was still alive. He was still alive and healthy. Daroga did not have anything at all to worry about—only to get well.

The Persian looked around, still slightly disoriented, and let his eyes fall on Raoul's sleeping form. Christine could see his anxious face and watched him as his features relaxed as he saw that the boy was indeed sleeping. Erik gave him his cup of cordial with some laudanum added to it, and left the room swiftly. Christine went back to her chair and picked up her book again.

"Christine, why do you not leave?" she heard the Persian asked her with a slight Middle Eastern accent.

She looked up at him, noticing that he was propped up on his elbow. He looked imploringly at her. "Christine, for your sake, you were not supposed to turn the scorpion. If you did not love him…"

He did not finish his sentence. Instead, his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell back onto his pillow. Christine's heart was moved for him, but she did not dare reply to him. She rose up and walked to him, her eyes to the floor. The Persian watched her as she doctored him. She placed a pleasantly cool hand on his forehead to make sure that he was not feverish, then left him again. Her eyes were glued to the floor, and she did not look at the boy. _She_ _could not look at him._

The day after, Erik came in with a draft for the Persian, spoke a few words to him, and forced him to drink it. After the Persian fell asleep, Erik took him and threw him over his shoulder like a sack and left, saying that he was only returning the Persian to his home and that he would be back to deliver the boy to his brother. As he was leaving, Christine suddenly leapt to her feet, realizing what door he was going through.

"Erik, no!" she exclaimed suddenly, throwing herself against the entrance to the torture chamber. "Not through this door!"

Erik's eyes flashed dangerously and he shoved her to the side impatiently. He took the key out of the pouch and shoved it into the lock that Christine, for the life of her, could have never found by herself.

"Christine has been such a good wife until now," he said calmly, but the way he said it sent chills up and down her spine. His voice dared Christine to reply, but she bowed her head submissively. She let him leave through that awful door, into the room that she had once thought beautiful until she heard the cries of anguish from the Persian and the Vicomte. The door slammed behind him, and Christine flinched as though she had been slapped in the face. She assured herself that he was only going through that door to get into the Opera House, that he was not stupid enough to get trapped within that awful room. She had no desire to be trapped within his house without him to let her out when the time came. Neither she nor Raoul knew how to get out of the terrible prison. They were at the monster's mercy.

Her eyes wide, she sat down on one of the couches in her room and stared at the door, waiting for him to return. It felt as though she waited for eternity, waiting for the hidden door to fly open or for the lamp to come on and the terrible heat to torture the monster. She could not bring herself to enter into the next room to sit by Raoul's side. She knew that in doing so, her resolve to be a good wife to Erik would falter, and she was afraid that Erik would be angry at her if he found her sitting next to the boy.

Just as she thought she was going to go mad, the door opened and Erik entered slowly. He looked at her desperate eyes sadly, and she stared at him, stony-faced. She could not decide which she felt more—relief or fear. Erik turned away with a sigh and left the room, only to return a moment later with the Vicomte draped over his shoulder, looking even more like a piece of baggage than the Persian did. This time it was Christine who looked away with a sigh.

Erik was back shortly after that, but Christine was still looking away from the door. She did not notice him until the door clicked shut. Her head snapped up to see a completely changed man.

He did not look like the avenging angel he had been for the past few days. No, not with his hands clasped in front of him the way they were. For the first time, Erik looked small and vulnerable, like a little child. At first, Christine could not believe that the man who stood before her was the same man who came before her face so often with such terrible fury, like a god of thunder, if it had not been for his mask. No, he was a god no longer. He was only a little child, meek and afraid. What a change! Something stirred within her heart, and Christine gave no thought to it; rather, she acted on her instincts.

Christine rose from her chair and came to him halfway. She stood tall and erect, and then waited. Erik was hesitant. He took a slow step towards her, then another, and another, until he stood before her. His head was bowed towards the floor, but his eyes glanced up at her as a shy little schoolboy would to his first love. Christine's heart softened, realizing how inexperienced he was. Ever since she knew him, it seemed to her that he could do anything and everything. It had never occurred to her that his face had deprived him of a chance to learn in this area of expertise. She tilted her head up to him—just a little bit, but enough for him to notice—and leaned towards him.

And then he kissed her forehead.

It was tender and sweet. She let his lips linger for a long time upon her forehead, knowing that this was perhaps the first time he had ever kissed a woman, and likewise knowing that no woman could ever be brave enough to let him do so.

So it did not surprise her when he cried.

The moment his lips left her forehead, he collapsed to her feet and wept like a little boy. There were many times when she had seen Erik weep, but never like this. He was crying for _joy._ It was always for sorrow before—sorrow that Christine did not love him; sorrow that he was so incredibly hideous; sorrow for the wretch he was to even suggest that he loved such a perfect angel. He kissed her feet as though she were a goddess—wept until her slippers were soaked through. Just as she was about to order him to rise, she heard him whisper softly,

"You did not die! I…Erik kissed you, and you did not die! I…I…! Christine is so…so good to me!"

Christine fell to her knees beside him and pressed her forehead to his, tears flowing free. For once, she could no longer feel her own pain and selfishness. For once, she felt that she could truly understand the monster…the man who was knelt by her side. Surely he deserved more happiness than the world could offer!

His tears came so hard when her tears slipped under his mask that he tore off the wretched thing and exposed his horrid face to her. It was the first time he had ever taken off his mask in front of her; every other time, she had been the one to strip him of his only protection. She did not flinch away this time. She could not find it in her to have the need to do so. Instead, she pressed her forehead to his naked one and stared deep into his eyes, trying to communicate all of her pity and sorrow for the poor man through the windows of her soul.

"Poor, unhappy Erik!" she whispered softly, only now, she did not think that he was poor nor unhappy for all the things she let him do with her in the past few minutes. His hands were tied into her skirts, and Christine looked down at them. Thinking that she was horrified that his hands were so close to her, Erik ripped his hands out of the tangled mess, but Christine only shook her head sadly and slipped her small hands into his long, pale ones. He was stunned for a moment, but then realizing that she had initiated it, he clutched at her hands and kissed them desperately.

She was letting him hold her hands!

His happiness was so tangible, even Christine could feel it course through her veins. For a moment, she forgot the world, forgot her playful engagement to Raoul; forgot everything but the man whose hands she held and allowed him to do what he would with her.

But he did nothing.

They sat there for an untold period of time. Christine waited. Erik savored the bliss. And then he did something neither of them expected of him.

"I can no longer keep you here," he whispered so softly, she might not have heard him. Silently, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the gold band, which had fallen off of her finger on the roof.

"Take it," he said, jamming it onto her left ring finger. "Take it as a wedding gift from your Erik, and remember that he loves you very much. I know you love the boy, so don't cry anymore. I will ask no more of you."

She gaped for a moment, and a whisper of a breath escaped her lips. "What do you mean?"

"You know me, Christine. I am a dog, forever at your beck and call. I would do anything for your sake, even if it were to let you go and marry your young man. I would die for you, you know. I love you too much to confine you to my darkness; it would kill you. You gave me more than I could ever hope for, with your tears. No one had ever cried with me! No one but you. I know you understand, and so I will let you go.

While she was pondering over the strangeness of his words, he pulled himself to his feet and left the room. She stared in wonderment at the place which she saw him last, when he suddenly returned with a half delirious Raoul on his shoulder. She leapt to her feet, his name on her lips.

Raoul staggered forward, and she caught him in her arms, planting kisses all over his face. He returned her kisses with exhausted energy, and she sobbed with relief and happiness.

Eventually, she looked around for Erik and saw him hiding in a shadowed corner of the room, watching them with the saddest expression on his face. She laid Raoul carefully back onto the couch and walked over to Erik to say farewell.

"I wish you all the happiness the world could offer, Mademoiselle," he said, his voice heavy and plaintive. "Promise me you would come back, though? I will die, soon, and all I ask is that you come and give me a proper farewell, will you?"

She nodded solemnly, and it looked as though a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

"Look for my body on the Communard Road. I will have the grave ready. All you need to do it bury me with the dirt." He grabbed her hand and kissed the ring still on her finger. "Keep the ring on you until that moment. Then, you will bury me with the ring. After that, I absolve you of all responsibility you may have over my death. I love you, Christine. Be free."

She cupped his poor ravaged face in her hands and placed a delicate kiss on his bare forehead, and he sobbed with renewed fervor. After a moments pause, she kissed him on the mouth and she tasted tears.

She left him broken on the floor, his dreams shattered in the darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: This chapter has been edited. 7/19/2010**

* * *

Chapter 2

_Erik is dead._

She had to read them three times in order for them to register in her mind. When they did, she felt an exhausting relief, like a load of bricks had been lifted off of her chest.

She was free.

Free from the monster. Free to do as she willed. Free to marry Raoul.

The first thing that came to her mind was that she had to inform her fiancé of this wonderful news.

But even as she rose from the table to go knock on the door to his suite, something held her back. If she told him, he would want to go with her, and that was not how Erik wanted it at all. He had wanted only her to be there when she buried his body. It would not do if she were to refuse his wishes, even if he were dead. She scoffed at herself for thinking this. Even after his death, he still held some kind of control over her. He always managed to do that, she thought bitterly to herself. Even when he was not there, she could not bring herself to ignore his every whim and deliberately disobey his every order. At the Opera, he told her to never see her lover, and she had obeyed. She only saw him when Erik gave permission, played with him because Erik knew she would be faithfully his. Never was she able to step out of line; horrible things happened if she did.

Now he was dead, and she did not have to worry herself about what he desired. If her fiancé wanted to go with her, then so be it. Erik could do nothing to them now. Besides, as his fiancée, didn't he deserve complete honesty? Yet as her mind quarreled for reasons to bring him with her to bury Erik, she hid the _Epoque_ in her room and called her maid.

"Oui, mademoiselle?" the young maid said as she came into her room.

Christine smiled nervously. She was not used to being waited upon so readily. "I need to go into town today. I have a few errands to do."

"Does Mademoiselle Christine need help getting ready?"

Christine blushed shyly. "If it's not too much to ask."

The maid nodded and helped her to dress for the travel into Paris. Even though she had been in this strange and foreign society for a month, now, she still found it quite uncomfortable to have someone dress her into her clothes.

Against her better judgment, she left without telling Raoul where she was going. When she had passed him on her way out, he noticed her traveling clothes and asked her where she was going. She tried to make it as vague as possible.

"I'm going on a few errands, see a few friends…"

His eyes narrowed. "What friends?" he asked.

She laughed nervously. "Why, Mama Valérius, of course! You know, I haven't seen her for almost three weeks now."

"Well, then, I shall come with you."

She shook her head desperately. "No, no, Raoul. You can't! I'm going to be fitting my dress, and you can't see that, yet!"

He looked almost crestfallen.

"Besides, you have things that need to be done, and I would only be in the way. A trip to Paris wouldn't do any harm, would it?"

"But—"

"Don't worry about me, Raoul. I will be fine. I'm taking Adalyn with me."

He could not argue with that. As long as someone went with her, preferably a maid, she would not drag her around to the places that he feared she would go to. It was not that she did not want Raoul to go with her, but he had been hovering over her shoulder since they had emerged from out of the Phantom's lair, and now, as she was looking up into his worried eyes, she knew that he would do everything in his power to keep her from going back there. She could not tell him she was going to fulfill her promise to Erik.

"Alright, Christine. Promise me something, then."

She twisted the gold wedding band Erik had given her around her finger. She knew what was coming, and she knew that she would have to break her promise. The ring was too heavy a burden to bear, and she could not break her vow to Erik. Besides, he _made_ her promise to come back, and Raoul did not like to see the horrible, plain ring on the finger that _his _ring was supposed to be.

She swallowed. "Anything."

"Don't go to the Opera."

Her head bobbed up and down even before he finished his sentence. "Raoul, you worry too much. Why on earth would I go there?" Her voice was shaky, but he did not seem to notice. She was a horrible liar, but Raoul was also just as gullible. He believed anything and everything she said.

She felt awful for playing him the fool.

"It's just that you have friends there, too, and I am afraid that that monster will take you again."

Her face paled at the thought, but Erik was dead. He could not take her anymore. "That's why I'm not going to go there, Raoul," she said softly, knowing that every word she was saying was not true. She was not going there to visit friends, nor was she going to avoid it altogether—she was going straight into the monster's lair. A chill swept over her and she shivered involuntarily. Raoul thought that it was because she was remembering horrifying memories, and he attempted to console her.

"I'm sorry, Christine," he said hurriedly. "I didn't mean to bring it up. It's just that I am so afraid that I would lose you again."

She smiled sadly, gently, wishing with all her heart that she did not have to go down deep into the dark. She touched Raoul's cheek, imploring him to trust her to come back. "Don't worry about me. Nothing bad will happen to me."

It was the worst lie she could have ever said, for he believed her. "Promise?"

Her smile was almost a grimace. "I promise. I will be back this afternoon."

She gave him a peck on the cheek as she left him.

And though she at least planned on returning to him, there would be no promises fulfilled that day, nor the next day, nor would she ever. The moment she set foot on the path to Erik's lair, she would never see the light of day as a free woman. Her husband was sure to prevent that.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: This chapter has been edited 7/20/2010**

Automobiles were in existence in the 1880s. In 1881, the first working model was run by electricity. 1885, Karl Benz came out with a model more familiar to us, with a four-stroke cycle gasoline engine, though they were small and had three wheels. In the 1890s, he came out with a four-wheeled model. 1896 brought internal combustion engines. Emile Roger, from France, bought and sold Benz's automobiles, bringing the four-wheeled wonder more to France than to Benz's home country Germany. The place and timing inspired me to buy a car for _la famille de Chagny_, though it is entirely unimportant to the movement of the plot. ;) **  
**

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Chapter 3

Christine sat inside the cab, clutching onto the seat as if her life depended on it. She was quite unused to such a strange invention. In fact, she felt that she would be safer tucked up inside a carriage drawn by a horse—not this noisy, smoking machine that was drawn by nothing but outlandish magic. Disgusting, black magic that noisily coughed and choked at the air and poisoned it with its fumes.

The cab turned, and Christine reached forward suddenly and clutched Adalyn's arm. The young maid laughed as she patted the poor girl's hand. "Really, mademoiselle. This automobile won't fall apart under us. Monsieur would not have paid so handsomely if it would have also cost him his neck."

Christine shook her head disbelieving. If she survived the half-hour ride to Paris, she would fall out of the cab and pray fervently to the Dear Lord.

The bizarre contraption gave a sudden loud _bang!_ and Christine yelped in surprise. Ingenious invention, indeed! What sort of invention would make such hideous and dreadful sounds? Not even Erik's inventions were this horrible! Well, she could think of a few exceptions, namely the frightening room of mirrors. As beautiful as it was, Erik talked of it just as he did of his opera, which was stunning and horrifying at the same time. He called it a torture chamber, and she hadn't understood how such an innocent looking room could be so torturous. At least, that was before Raoul and his Persian companion had fallen into it…

The cab's gears cranked noisily and came to a sudden stop, and Christine nearly fell out of her seat. When she realized that she had reached her destination alive, she didn't bother waiting for the driver to open the door for her. She wanted out of her confinement and set her feet on solid ground. She inhaled a deep breath of air and sighed heavily. She turned around to face Adalyn.

"We are walking from now on, until we go home."

She knew what she was proposing, that they would walk halfway through Paris. That would most certainly be arduous on their feet, but she did not care. She did not wish to climb into the flimsy contraption again.

"But mademoiselle!" she started in protest.

Christine ignored her and walked into the clothes shop. For a moment, Adalyn stared after her, and then sulkily followed her into the store.

They spent several hours there. The wedding dress they ordered did not fit Christine properly. Apparently, Raoul had completely underestimated her size; the waist was much too small and the shoulders were too narrow. In contrast, the hem was too long, and Christine tripped when she had tried to walk in it. Throughout the fitting, the seamstress complained and fretted over the dress and why it had ended up being so misfitted.

"Honestly," she cried out for the fifth time. "Why could he not have brought you in for sizing the first time?" She growled in her throat, then began mimicking Raoul in a singsong voice that did not sound a bit like him. "'I am concerned for her safety, Madame. I do not wish to risk her health, Madame. She may get hurt or lost in a city this large, Madame!'" She laughed spitefully. "I know that Paris is dangerous, but it's not _that_ dangerous!"

Christine listened to her tirade without bothering to interrupt. She let the seamstress rant and complain to her heart's desire, about how difficult it would be to try and fix the dress and how it would cost more and take more time in trying to make it. After an hour of this, she finally ordered Christine to get out of the ridiculous dress and began sizing her for a new one.

When they were finally done, the seamstress turned to Christine. "Oh, and tell your fool of a fiancé to use some sense, sometime!"

Christine hid a smile as she left. Raoul could be ridiculous sometimes, but it was enduring to her. Of course, she did not understand why Raoul refused to take her into town to be measured for her dress, but it did not matter. Once they were married, everything would be back to normal.

As normal as things could be.

She and Adalyn began walking down the street—Christine refused to take the automobile. Halfway down the street, Adalyn stopped to look at something in one of the shop's windows. Christine sighed and looked away to look for something to distract her.

The Palais Garnier stood before her.

Her stomach sunk like a stone in a pond. The building was as beautiful as ever, but to her, it was filled with foreboding and danger. The grand majesty of it was menacing, and the impressive doors frowned at her.

She couldn't move, and she stood with her gaze transfixed. She had to fulfill her promise to Erik, so she could clear her conscience. Christine usually was not superstitious, but the thought of Erik's spirit hovering over her for the remainder of her days disturbed her. She did not wish to be haunted by Erik's ghost.

"Mademoiselle?"

She turned to see Adalyn looking at her.

"Before we go to Madame Valérius's, I have a few errands of my own. Will that be alright?"

She nodded dumbly. "I would like to see a friend… of mine…privately," she said faintly. She had wanted to put it off until after her visit with Mamma Valérius, but right now seemed the only opportunity she would get today. She would not have to ask Adalyn to go do something else while she was detained for an hour. "Meet me in front of the Opera House in three hours. My friend lives close by."

The young maid curtsied. "Oui, mademoiselle." She turned and entered the store.

She was so unsuspecting, Christine was almost jealous.

With her mind set, she turned towards the Palais Garnier, her heart hesitant to go, but her feet refused to set off anywhere else. Within moments, she entered the Opera in the Rue Scribe entrance. No one saw her, and she knew if something happened, no one would be able to tell where she had gone.

_Silly,_ she scolded herself. _Erik is dead._ He could do nothing to her now.

The entrance led her down into the all-consuming darkness that seemed it would be there for eternity.

It was not hard to find her way through the dark hallways. She found the road easily enough, and she walked the entire way, but there was nothing there. It confused her; Erik had told her to bury him here, hadn't he? He _had _said that he would have everything prepared for her, didn't he?

The more she wondered, the less sure she was of herself. Perhaps he had died in his house? Did he die before he could make all the arrangements?

Near the end of the road, she noticed a large hole, about a foot deep, but not quite long enough or deep enough to be a grave for Erik. Was this the site where he had planned to be buried? Suddenly, childishly, she wished that he were still alive to tell her what to do. He had always done so in the past.

From the corner of her eye, she saw something flicker. As she peered into the darkness, she could see the furnaces, their angry mouths opening and closing, and she could see the black demons silhouetted by the open doors to the boilers. She remembered how fascinating she had once found the workers' jobs to be, that the large furnace could heat up the entire Opera House with its many floors and hallways. Now, as she looked at it, she could feel a memory resonate in the back of her mind, of Erik's presence behind her as they traveled down this dark road together. She must have been put into a drug-induced state when he brought her down, as she could scarcely remember anything but the demons and the fear of hell as she descended further into the darkness, but what she had once found intriguing, she now had a childlike fear of the thing.

Over the roar of the furnaces in the distance, she thought she could hear a whisper of a breath…

"_Christine…"_

She swung around, eyes wide, searching the shadows with her ill-suited lamp. The light cast by her lamp gave no more relief than if she had tried to put a dent into water. She could see nothing.

She felt a puff of air on the skin of her neck, and her heightened senses told her something bony and fish-like brushed her hair away and a mouth touched her neck. She trembled with fear at the sensation.

But when she turned around to look for who it was, there was nothing.

And then she ran.

She ran far and long. Her breath was coming in ragged gasps, and she had to grasp her side as she ran; it felt as though someone had stabbed her with a sword. The lamp was swinging madly in her hand, and it created monstrous shadows on the walls as she passed through, which only made her want to run faster. Her feet slapped against the stone steps, and the sounds echoed and bounced around her; real, living, breathing monsters tagging in her steps. She could feel nothing but fear, and that fear magnified until she thought she would die.

The air became wet and chilly—not like the chilliness that she had been running through within the depths of the cellars. This chilliness reached out and grabbed her like a clammy, ghostly hand, and Christine knew that she was finally at the lake. She could see the light from her lamp reflect upon the glassy, smooth water. She waited to catch her breath and calm her racing heart. Her hands ceased their shaking, and she knew that now was the time to return to the surface.

She could not fulfill her bargain to Erik if there was no body to bury.

Still, she felt that the least she could do was to drop the ring on the shore of the lake. He had wanted it back, and she was here to return it.

She slipped the ring off her finger, but when she held it out to drop it, she could not let go.

_Let go, _she told herself. She had done the most she could do. Erik did not prepare properly for her, as he said he would have. He was dead, and there was nothing more that she could do.

But what if he is in there?

Her eye was drawn to the opposite shore.

What if he had died inside? Shouldn't she at least check?

With a sigh, she climbed into the boat and started to row, and all too soon, she found herself on the threshold of his house. Clumsily, she docked the boat and climbed out, narrowly avoiding tumbling into the cold, icy water. She stepped up to the seamless wall and opened the hidden door after much searching—just as Erik instructed her to do. The door swung open, and Christine found herself standing before a black, gaping hole, ready to swallow her in.

Her instincts told her that something was very wrong. The darkness of the room made her very uncomfortable, though she knew not why. Perhaps it was because she had never been in his house in total darkness, but the door had always opened to a bright, well-lit room. Not this horrible darkness. Erik never let her walk into his house without it filled with the comforting light.

For the first time, it hit her how final those three words in the _Epoque_ had been. Up until now, they had been just words and a sign that she was finally free, but she had forgotten that his death meant he no longer existed. Everything she experienced with him was little more than a memory; there would be no more Voice, no light in the house, no more promises made in love. His melancholy eyes were shut forever. He was gone.

Gone.

Her Angel was dead.

For a moment, she was devastated. Her Angel, the Ghost, who had so patiently urged her voice to be as brilliant as it was, was gone. Her tutor and genius was swallowed up in death, and it was her duty, as his widow, to bury his remains. The body that had housed the glorious, angelic voice was nothing more than that: a corpse. No longer would she ever be filled with his brilliant music and emotion.

It was a good thing, she told herself. He was not a good person. His genius had turned him into a madman, and she no longer had to feel his fiery anger. The realization was bittersweet, as he had been her angel before he was Erik. He had been kind, then; patient and long-suffering, just as an angel should be. Then suddenly, he was Erik. He had filled Christine with all kinds of horrors imaginable. His face was a nightmare, his music was dreadful, but worst of all was his temper. It had been terrifying. There had been countless times when he had to lock himself in his room when it got too bad, and every time, Christine would retreat to her room and refuse to come out until she could hear Erik's sobs entreating her to come out. He would not have been so bad if it weren't for his temper. She could have forgiven him for his face if it weren't for that one, horrible flaw.

Taking a deep breath, assuring herself that she would never have to bear his madness ever again, Christine took a tentative step into the dark door. She had no idea what lay ahead of her; the darkness was impenetrable and pressed down on her, even with her lamp. Still, the lamp was better than nothing, as it kept her from being consumed with the horrible darkness. The golden glow was entrancing, and she was glad for the company that the strange light gave her. It reminded her of all of those times when Erik had let her around the cellars of the Opera House…

She shook her head firmly. Once she came to do what Erik wished her to do, she could get away from all of these awful memories and darkness and rush home to Raoul's arms. Now that she was here, she both wished him with her and was glad she did not take him along. If he were there, he could fill the buzzing silence with sweet nothings and tell her that the sense that someone was watching her was only her imagination, brought on by the blank darkness that seemed to lie forever before her eyes. On the other hand, if he were there, he would have not let her set foot inside the Opera House to take care of the ghosts of her past. If he did not let her complete the task set before her, she would never forget it for the rest of her life. She would never cease hearing Erik's tortured wails coming from his hideous mouth. No, she had to be strong now. Dear God, she had to be strong for Raoul, for their future together.

She did not notice it at first, but after she took another step into the room, a light flickered somewhere within another room in the house. With a startled cry, Christine dropped the lamp and it fell with a resounding crash. Her hands covered her eyes, and she stood, shivering in the cold and dark, waiting for the skeletal arms to slip around her and carry her off to her room. He had always done that when her fear got the better of her.

Nothing happened. The house was as still and dead as a tomb.

Christine peeked out from between her fingers and saw that the light had not moved. Indeed, now that she was looking at it more carefully, it was not the same golden color or brightness as Erik's awful eyes. It seemed darker, more melancholy, which Christine had not thought possible. What could possibly be more melancholy than Erik's eyes?

Curious, she followed the light, wondering to where it led. It did not ever once occur to her that it might be a trap. Erik was dead. He had set her free. What could he possibly want with her if he were dead? But with every step she took, it brought her closer to an uncertain and doomed future. She could not possibly imagine how life changing it would be if she entered the room. Yet enter she did, rapt and captivated. She could not take her eyes off of the light, and it beckoned her closer, and closer she came.

As she was walking forward, she bumped into something that was as high as her waist. Somewhat belatedly, Christine looked away from the light and looked down to see a coffin. _His_ coffin. Somehow, it was not as horrible to her as it once was; the creature was dead now. When she had first seen it, she thought it horribly gruesome that Erik slept in a _coffin._ He was still alive and healthy, and he had slept in a _coffin_. But now he was dead, and this thing that had caused her so much horror before now was suited for its purpose. Erik was dead, and his final resting place was to be in a coffin.

Now that she was no longer spellbound, Christine could hear a strange hissing noise issuing forth from the light, and she looked up at it curiously again. As she studied it, she had to let forth a short laugh. Why, it was only an ordinary gas lamp! How strange that it could have intrigued her so.

She turned her attention back to the coffin. Slowly, knowing that she must do this, she lifted the lid and stared down at Erik.

He stared back, but only with the dumb horror that was every corpse's face. The only sound that broke the hissing silence was the gasp that emerged from Christine's mouth. No sound came from Erik. He was not sobbing, breathing, or entreating her. His throat no longer throbbed or panted like a hot furnace like it did when he was excited or angry. No, he was properly still for once, his chest perfectly still and dead. His eye sockets were completely devoid of light. Erik was totally and absolutely dead, as corpses ought to be.

With a heavy sigh of relief, Christine reached down and took Erik's left wrist. She took the plain gold band and was about to slip it onto his ring finger when she felt it. Even though he was dead, even though he was truly a corpse now, his wrist was throbbing and fluttering rhythmically, and her heart dropped like a stone to the bottom of her chest. How was it possible? He was not breathing! The newspapers said that he was dead! She should have been safe from him—safe from all of his horrible vows of love and anger!

As she stood there in horror and shock, his chest began pumping up and down like a bellows. The air hissed through his gaping nose and mouth, and his awful gasps filled her ears. She shrieked and dropped his hand. The lid slammed down on him, and Christine turned to flee, but she collided with the gas lamp. Before the light went out, she looked up to see the door, her only access to freedom, slam shut. And then she was left alone in the dark.

Complete and utter darkness.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: This chapter has been edited 7/25/2010**

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Chapter 4

He wished he were dead.

It felt as though he should be dead, but for some reason, he could not bring himself to do it. Instead, he lay there in his coffin like a corpse, waiting to muster up the courage to die.

There were countless tragic love stories that ended in death. Romeo could not live without his Juliet, and had killed himself before she could emerge from her sleep of death. Antony slew himself when he received a false report – a _false report_ – of Cleopatra's death. Tristan of Cornwall died of grief when he believed his love would not return to him. It irked Erik to no end that they could die so easily and without a second thought, and he couldn't slip some poison into his food, or pull the trigger to his head. He knew of countless different ways to kill a man, and yet he couldn't manage to do it to himself.

He shot up from his coffin, shoving the lid out of his way. It clattered to the floor and the sound echoed in the cold, dark room.

He wished he could die so easily! He was supposed to have left this living hell for good by now! He would have welcomed the wonderful and eternal darkness like an old lover…if he died. It was certainly more preferable to the broken heart that _she _had left him with.

Roaring in rage, he left his coffin and stormed about his room, blind to everything around him because the darkness was so complete, yet he did not need light to show him things he already knew were there. He paced around the room, passing his beloved organ, his coffin, his inventions countless times and never noticing them. Surely it could not be that hard to die, could it? All he had to do was close his eyes and sleep forever, never to wake again.

With that thought in mind, he dug through his collection of weapons to find a pistol and made sure that it was ready to be used. He returned to the coffin and fairly leapt in, eager to be enfolded in the arms of the angel of death. This time he would do it! This time, when he went to sleep, he would never wake again! He cocked the pistol and prepared to shoot himself in the head.

"Please don't shoot me!" he heard an angel call out suddenly.

He was so surprised that he accidentally pulled the trigger, but thankfully, it was not pointed to his head, or to the angel. Instead, he shot himself in the thigh.

He could barely hear the angel's cry of fear above his roar of pain. He threw the pistol aside and it clattered to the floor. It had been a long time since he felt pain like this. Once, he was accustomed to such pain, but it had been nearly thirty years. Besides, he had not been expecting a bullet in his leg. He had been expecting to place it in his head. He tried to control his emotions and look through the haze of pain at the angel, and then remembered there was no light for him to see by. He could imagine her emotions clearly—horror, fear, confusion. Surely she was disconcerted at this sudden turn of events, especially in the dark.

With great effort, Erik pulled himself out of the coffin and landed on the ground with a grunt. He felt horribly embarrassed that Christine should have witnessed his moment of stupidity. He reached for the gas lamp that was lying on the floor beside her and turned it on for her. She hid her eyes from the sudden brightness, but that did not stop Erik from talking to her through his pain.

"Christine came back to me—to Erik!"

She looked up at him, her eyes still squinting, as he spoke. He had forgotten the promise he had made her make; he was too happy to remember it. He preferred to remain in his bliss. Who could have predicted his love's return? Perhaps she truly did love him, and not that miserable boy!

It pleased him when he saw the look of horror and concern flit across her features at the sight of all the blood. "Erik! You are hurt! Why did you do this?"

Erik smiled sadly. "I was trying to sleep, my dear," he murmured happily. He didn't care if he died now; he would die cheerfully. But Christine did not seem to agree with his logic. He could see how stupid she thought him to be, but it did not override her look of panic.

"Oh, Erik! What do I do? I don't know what to do! Tell me what to do," she babbled incessantly, but it made him feel intoxicated to see that she seemed actually worried about him.

Or perhaps he was horribly wrong. Christine loved no one but her dear Raoul. Her concern for Erik was as normal as it would be from one being to another. She could not bear the sight of anyone, including Erik, suffering. She would cringe at the thought of anyone suffering from any sort of pain. It was her greatest weakness.

Still, it was nice to pretend.

"Erik, why were you trying to use a gun to help you sleep?" she asked him. "You could have killed yourself." Something fell into place in her mind, and she gasped in surprise. "You weren't trying to kill yourself, were you?"

Erik smiled happily. "Death is but a sister to sleep. Eternal bliss, wouldn't you say?"

Christine became dreadfully pale and white. Hastily, she began tearing the hem of her dress into strips and reached for Erik's leg, but he pushed her hands away when she tried to tie the strips around his wound.

"No, my dear. The bullet must come out."

He pushed himself away from the floor—and to his dismay, she did not protest—to find his medical tools. He limped his way across the floor and tried to ignore the sharp, blinding pains that shot up his leg and nearly paralyzed his brain. Halfway across the room, he stepped wrong on his foot, and it twisted horrendously. He gave a cry and nearly fell to the floor, but suddenly, the angel was at his side, struggling to support his weight. Normally, he would shove away anyone who dared to help him, but this was Christine, and she was giving her help willingly, so he would take it willingly. The help made an enormous difference. The pain was greatly reduced, and he could think about what he must do.

She helped him over to his medical supplies and gently lowered him to the ground. She asked him what he needed and he explained to her what must be done. As Erik grappled with the pain that seemed to have taken over his mind and body, he was dimly aware of Christine shoving through his medicinal cabinet. _Like a wife_, he thought hysterically.

Once she had all of the things Erik asked her to get, she knelt down beside him and waited for his next instructions. He tore the fabric of his pants to reveal his gunshot wound. The moment the fabric came away from the wound, the smell of rusty, fresh blood filled his nose, and Christine gasped. He looked up at her curiously and saw that all of the blood was drained from her face, even her lips were white, and her eyes were glued to his leg.

"Christine?" he asked worriedly. He was not concerned at all for himself—he was quite used to the pain by now. Honestly, he had felt pain much worse than this.

She glanced up at him, her face turning a sickly shade of green. "It's so…so…_red!"_

It occurred to him that she had never before seen this much blood before, while at the same time, he wondered if she had been thinking that he would not have any blood. Besides, red was a warm color; a color of life, and Erik did not in any way resemble a warm or living man. He was always cold to the touch—he had to wear gloves in order for her not to recoil away from him. Aside from that, she had to be positively mortified that he had shot himself and caused himself this injury.

"Will you be alright?" Erik asked her, and Christine nodded, though she looked as though she were about to faint.

He took the surgical knife and hefted it in his hands, contemplating where he needed to cut so that he could get the bullet out with the least amount of pain. Nodding to himself, he lowered the knife to his leg and plunged it into the red, sticky mess.

Christine fainted.

Erik shrugged to himself. It was just as well. This probably was not something a woman should witness. He probably should have taken her to her room, but he had to get the bullet out. He worked at the wound, wincing every now and then when the pain got the better of him. After a few minutes, he successfully retrieved the bullet, and then he poured iodine and then some alcohol on the open wound. He gasped at the pain it caused him, but it was good pain, necessary pain. He wrapped it up tightly in his medical bandages, tidied up, and waited for Christine to come to.

He did not wait long. After about ten minutes, Christine began to rouse from her fainting spell. Erik's lips twitched—it was wonderful to see someone, especially Christine, wake up from their sleep. There was something new and refreshing about it.

"Is Christine feeling better?"

Suddenly realizing where she was and what had just recently happened, Christine shot up from her sleeping position. She glanced furtively around her, looking for the blood and seeing that it was all cleaned. Erik had changed into fresh clothes, and it looked as though nothing had been disturbed, almost as though nothing had ever happened.

It took Christine a moment to reply to him. "Yes, I'm fine," she said slowly. "I believe that I'm ready to go home, now."

Disbelief rushed through him, and he felt like a wall of stone was crushing his chest. Christine had come back to him, and now she was leaving again! Surely she had come of her own free will. But no, Erik now remembered what he had asked of her, that she would bury him in the greatest secrecy, and he had wanted her to come alone. He did not want to have anyone else see his dead body. Christine walked slowly over to him and pressed something small into his palm.

"Would you still want me to come back? To…um…do what you had wanted me to do before?" she asked nervously.

Erik closed his eyes and tightened his fist, realizing that she had given him his ring back. This was pain that he was not accustomed to. It came from within, and it hurt worse than anything he had ever imagined.

"No," he said softly.

Relief flooded her pretty features, and it made Erik's heart break. "So can I go now?" she asked eagerly, glancing over at the door. It was seemingly non-existent, as all the doors were when they were locked. Erik smiled cynically to himself. He had attempted to open the door while she still was asleep, and he had noticed that the counterweights had somehow broken. Perhaps she did not have to go at all.

"No," he said again, even more softly than before, but it caused Christine's eyes to widen with fear.

"Erik, I must get back to my fiancé!" she cried, trying to sound indignant about it all, but failing miserably in her attempt. "You must not keep me trapped down here!"

He growled within his throat. "Have you forgotten, _mon chère,_ that you are married to _me_? For as long as we both shall live!"

Christine cowered underneath his shadow, and he took some small, sick pleasure in her fear.

Silence reigned for a long period, and as Erik stared down at his wife, he felt something move deep within his bosom, almost like pity, but he could not allow himself to feel for her. She was his, and she would do as he wanted her. Her dear little Raoul was far away from him, safe from his rival. It was only fair, he thought to himself. He had been deprived of happiness for so long, he deserved to get it in any way he could. Yet he could not deny the pity that was still rising from his heart for the poor girl. After all, she only came to fulfill her promise. Surely she deserved a second chance.

"If you could unlock that door," he said, gesturing to the only way out of his room, "I shall let you go free. If not, you remain here with me." He laughed maniacally. "I'll give you twenty-four hours."

A full day, he thought to himself. It sounded reasonable enough. It was not as if she would find her way out. She never needed to know that the counterweights were broken, and she already knew that his doors were as complicated as a full-sized labyrinth. He would allow her the hope of escape, and when she was still with him, she would only assume that he was fair in his deal with her, and she would stay.

Erik sat down and waited for his wife to return to him, while Christine worked fruitlessly, hopelessly, at the door.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Christine stood in front of the wall, her mind as blank as the non-existent door. It had been five minutes, two hours, a whole day, even a whole week for all she knew. There was no clock in Erik's room, unless he had one on his person, but Christine would not dare approach him. Time seemed meaningless in this room, except for the incessant ticking within Christine's head.

She remembered where the lock was located on the door on the lake, and she felt for the trigger, but it was not there. It seemed as though it were not anywhere on the door. She did not dare ask Erik anything for fear that he would take away this one privilege of escape. Nevertheless, she could not stop looking behind her to see him sitting on his organ bench as still as a statue, staring at her…waiting eagerly. The way he was looking at her made her spine tingle, and though she kept telling herself that she should not glance over at him, she could not avoid his intense gaze. Her hands trailed over the wall, feeling anxiously for any kind of hidden niche for the door.

After a long period of time, she pushed away from the wall with an angry huff and started pacing nervously. She twisted her hands in front of her, trying to quell her nerves, but every time she turned back to the door to continue searching, the wall stood before her, staring mockingly, and she went right back to pacing. Whenever she did that, she could feel Erik's eyes laughing. She just wanted to fly at him and slap him hard across the face, but she was afraid that he would take her in his arms and never let her go. So she had to be content with throwing daggers at him with her eyes.

Eventually, she went back to searching the wall, but to no avail. It was almost as though the locks were non-existent, as if the room had a mind of its own and did not want her to escape this horrible prison. The silence was dreadful and oppressive, and it weighed heavily on her mind, just as time did. The silence buzzed around her head, and the ticking seemed to grow louder in her ears. _If it stayed this quiet for the rest of my life_, Christine thought to herself, _I believe I would go_ _mad_! Indeed, she already felt the need to scream as loud as she could at the top of her lungs, but she did not know if Erik would react angrily. She never knew what to do in Erik's presence; she feared even to sneeze.

Time passed slowly, crept by her on tiptoes. It felt as though it had been eternity since she had descended into the bowels of the Opera House. She couldn't remember what she had said to Raoul just that morning—something about a lie for a promise. Raoul would be so heartbroken when she would not return to him that evening. He would be devastated. Surely he would come for her! He loved her enough, did he not? He would endanger his life for her again, would he not?

She sighed heavily and began banging her head gently against the wall, if only to show how frustrated she was becoming. The sound was hollow, and she knew that on the other side of the door, just a few mere inches away, was freedom. Yet that freedom, as close as it was, was yet so far away, so difficult to come by. She kept it up for several minutes—_thunk, thunk, thunk_! until she heard something stir restlessly behind. She whipped around when she heard fabric softly whispering and saw Erik, standing up and staring at her as if concerned for her welfare. Ha! If he were so concerned, he would have let her go long ago!

When he saw that she was not trying to kill herself slowly by knocking her head on the door, Erik seated himself again slowly.

"Is there no key?" she whispered softly.

Erik, surprised that she would ask such a question, remained frozen for a moment, then tilted his head almost imperceptively to the left. Christine noted it, though, and turned back to the door with a profound sigh.

An hour later, or maybe three, Christine threw her hands up in rage and cried aloud. "Why must you be such a genius, Erik?" she fairly screamed at him, her temper flaring. It had been building up ever since Erik told her to look for the door and unlock it, but she had been afraid to show it for fear that Erik would fly at her in his own kind of rage.

He did nothing.

His apparent inconsideration infuriated her more than anything, but she did not dare to approach him. Instead, she stormed resolutely to the coffin and pushed it over. Her behavior was childish, but Christine meant to irritate Erik out of his calm demeanor, to get him to do something other than sitting there on his organ bench, cold and remote. She wanted him to make noise, yell at her, grip her arms until he bruised her. She didn't even care if he played his _Don Juan_! She only wanted him to show some emotion instead of being stoic!

His eyes only twinkled with amusement.

She kicked the coffin with even greater strength than she knew she had, and it split down the middle. Satisfied, she looked up at Erik, hoping he were angry.

He only looked even more amused. "Where am I going to sleep now?" he asked. "There is one bed and two of us. Oh, dear." His voice was teasing her, and Christine suppressed a shiver. He wouldn't dare to sleep with her! She was unwilling, and Erik would never force her to do anything she did not want to do.

She tried to piece the coffin back together, but she only wasted precious minutes, and the wooden box only became more damaged. Impatiently, she shoved it away with her foot and glowered at it. Erik was grinning broadly from ear to ear, seeing that she was childishly trying to infuriate him. Foolish child. He hated that coffin in any case, and it gave him great pleasure to see her break it. It only meant that he did not need to die anymore.

Growling furiously to herself—a growl that sounded more like a kitten's purr to Erik's ears—she pushed herself from the floor and flew to the door, pounding her tiny fists against the door desperately. There was no way out! She would never solve this impossible puzzle that Erik had set to her. She turned to Erik with wild, feverish eyes, as though she knew deep within her that there was no hope to be found. "Will you open the door, please, Erik?"

The corners of Erik's mouth pulled down into a displeased frown. "If I open the door for you, then you know that you cannot go back. You remain here with me. Your time is not yet up."

"Then how much time do I have left?" she cried exasperatedly, to which Erik only grinned widely at her.

Her eyes flashed with anger. "Erik, why must you frustrate me so?"

His smile grew even more impressive, like the grin of a skull. It made her positively livid, the way he was treating her, as if she were only a child asking impertinent questions. She paced angrily around the room, glaring at everything Erik had collected on his shelves, and on her second or third pass, she reached up as though she were about to knock them down to the floor.

The first object had barely had time to crash to the floor when Erik appeared suddenly, noiselessly beside her, despite the wound in his leg, and gripped her arm so painfully that she fell to the ground with a cry. She did not know why she had tried to make him angry. Now that he was, his glare made her so terrified, she felt as though she would die right there at his feet. She tried to wrench her arm out of his vice-like grip, but he only held on to her tighter. He thrust his face in front of her, and she looked away from his horrible, angry eyes. He hissed at her when she diverted her gaze, and his other hand took a hold of her hair and twisted her head up towards him.

"_Never…touch…Erik's…things_!" he hissed dangerously, his face contorted with anger and his eyes shooting fire. For the second time in her life, Christine was certain that Erik would kill her.

She tried to flee, though it was impossible for her to escape him, and it only made him even angrier. He threw her against the wall and pressed himself on her body, his long fingers at her neck, but not quite clutching it in his death-like grip. As much as he wanted to, he could not take her soft, white neck into his murderous, bloodstained hands and squeeze the life out of her. Even while blinded by his fury, Erik could still see that it was Christine who was at his mercy. He could not pretend that the girl who quivered beneath his body was a complete stranger who he could kill without a second thought. He suddenly realized that when he came to himself again, he would torture himself for what he had done to Christine.

Slowly, he drew away from her as though afraid that if he moved to quickly, she would break and die of fear. Fire still pounded through his veins, but he was beginning to calm down. It was easier to calm down when Christine's liquid blue eyes were looking up imploringly at him. She was shocked, of course. She hadn't yet realized that she had almost died and that she was still alive. Her expression was frozen, as though she were afraid to let things register in her mind.

When he finally released her, he sighed heavily and turned away from her.

"I gave you twenty-four hours," he whispered softly. "I suggest you use them."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Erik could not watch Christine. He sat on his organ bench as before, but his back was turned towards her and his head was bowed over the organ keys. He couldn't even hide behind his mask; he had dropped it in the Louis-Philippe room, and to get it was to show Christine how to unlock the door, even with the counterweights broken. Of course, he could do so discreetly, but he could not risk it. Instead, he sat over his organ, caressing each key lovingly. He wished desperately that Christine would love him as the music loved him. She was the angel of music, and if the music loved him, why not she? Genius though he was, this fact was beyond his comprehension.

As for Christine, she sat in front of the door, staring at it and doing nothing. She was doing some thinking of her own. Erik had tried to kill her; that she knew for sure. But he hadn't. He had stopped before his fingers could completely close over her throat, and Christine touched it gingerly, as if disbelieving that she was still alive. She wanted to cry, but not in front of Erik. She didn't want him to see her drowning in her tears. She was afraid that if he did, he would fall at her feet and beg her forgiveness. He would kiss her dainty feet and clutch her skirts. No, the only man she wanted was Raoul, and she would never see him again. The door was too hard to open. If Erik had threatened that he would kill Raoul if she did not open the door, even then, she knew that she would not be able to do it.

Erik had not moved since he had tried to kill her. He was wallowing, and Christine wondered if this Erik bothered her more than the stoic one. His grief was disturbing, if not unhealthy, and she wished that he would phase out of it and be a normal Erik again. Well, if normal could be unpredictable, then that was what she wanted Erik to be. He seemed to be punishing himself, and it frightened her.

She moved back to the wall and tried to concentrate on what she was looking for, but all of her concentration was completely thrown out of the window—it was not formulating in her mind. Nevertheless, her fingers ran over the wall one more time, but her fingertips were so numb from doing this hundreds of times, she doubted that she would be able to feel the switch had it been poking out a mile from the wall. After this unsuccessful attempt, she moaned quietly and leaned her head against the wall—she refused to call it a door now. A door would not have been as unyielding to her efforts as this dreadful wall was.

Her eyes closed for a moment, and she suddenly became aware of how exhausted she was. All she wanted to do now was to curl up in a little ball and sleep. It didn't seem to matter anymore what happened to her. She was giving up, and she knew it, but she could care less. She didn't care that her husband looked better dead; she didn't care that he could sometimes get so angry that he could kill her; she didn't care that he was half-mad and unpredictable. All she wanted to do was stop running her hands over this stupid wall and live a life, whether or not it was with a corpse.

But for now, she only wanted to sleep. She lay down on the floor and frowned. It was much too hard and cold, and the only thing that had something suitable for sleeping was in Erik's coffin. She crawled over to the splintered mess and pulled the blankets out of it and wrapped them tightly around her. Erik did not once stir from his seat at the organ. He was extremely preoccupied with his thoughts. If Christine did not know any better, he would have still sat there even if a fire started right underneath him. No, sometimes he was completely oblivious to the obvious.

She sighed and closed her eyes, quickly falling asleep. The last thing that crossed her mind before she gave herself over to oblivion was that of his cold stubbornness as he kept his back to her.

After a while, Erik slowly became aware of the utter silence in the room. He could not hear her frustrated sighs from time to time, nor could he hear her delicate hand brush over the wall. For a moment, he realized that she had indeed found out the secret to his door and thought that she had left him without any parting goodbye. He sighed. It was just as well. After all, he had almost murdered her! He could not bring himself to turn around to see the gaping hole in the wall. It would be too painful for him to even see such a thing.

He sighed again. Since she was gone, since he knew that she would not be coming back, he might as well crawl into his destroyed coffin and wait for death to take him once again. Perhaps, if he could just starve himself to death, he would slip easily, restfully into such beautiful eternal sleep. To hell with Hell! He didn't care if there was an afterlife! Hell could not possibly be so horrible as not having Christine with him in this life. He stood and turned around…

…To see that Christine was fast asleep on the floor, the black funeral sheets making her exceptionally pale and beautiful, like a cold spring morning when the droplets of dew sets upon the grass. He gave a cry of delight to see that she was still with him, that she was sleeping comfortably instead of working hopelessly on the door. He thought that she would not sleep at all when he gave her this chance to escape, but apparently it was not so. Perhaps her love for the boy was not as strong as he thought. He would have gone to all lengths to get back to her, if he were placed in her position. Perhaps there was still hope in her loving him after all.

He rushed to her and hovered over her still frame. She was absolutely peaceful with the way she looked. He could almost forget the horrors of what had happened only an hour ago. He marveled that she could still sleep knowing that she was in the presence of a madman, but then, her emotions have been wired the moment he told her that he would not be letting her go, and then her near death experience. Surely that would give her enough cause to be heavy with exhaustion.

The tears that he had been trying to harbor within him finally broke loose as he thought over what he did to his poor Christine. She was so sweet and innocent, so trusting. She came down here because Erik wished it; came down to carry out her promise, and how had Erik repaid her? By being a monster. A stupid, reckless monster. She was kind to him, and he had nearly killed her. He was such a dreadful creature. He was not worthy of her love at all. She belonged with the boy, _Raoul_—belonged to him as she would never belong to Erik. She loved the boy, and she would never love Erik. He did nothing deserving of her love, except that he gave her her voice. And what would that amount to in the long run? How could that give her any reason to love him? She was afraid of her voice, of his music, as she was afraid of nothing else. She could not love something she feared.

His quaking hand hovered above her alabaster cheek, but he could not bring himself to touch such a pure, untainted angel. She would never forgive him for that. He was doomed to be forever withheld from the pleasures of love.

He choked back a sob and tried to gain control over himself. He was in an even more pitiful state than when he shot himself in the leg, and though he did not mind showing his tears to Christine, he doubted her little heart could bear much emotion any longer.

"Christine?"

She stirred slightly, and Erik felt a sense of déjà vu—only hours before, when Christine had woken, he was in a state of utter bliss and contentment. Now, he was in the abyss of sorrow and heartbreak.

She stretched, and her arms touched his knee. His heart pounded and leapt, but she did not seem to notice. Instead, after she stretched, she fell limp, her arm still touching him. Tentatively, Erik reached out for her open palm that lay right next to his own. Fire shot up his arm when his skin made contact, but unfortunately, Christine shot up with a gasp and ripped her hand out of Erik's. Wistfully, Erik thought back on a time when she had willingly given him her hands. She had completely given herself over to him at that time, but now, she would never be his. He hung his head.

"You have fifteen hours left," he started, but a choking sound interrupted him.

She coughed fitfully for a minute or two with Erik watching helplessly. Whenever he tried to do something to help her, she waved him away.

"Is my Christine well?" he asked when her coughs subsided.

She nodded impatiently. "You mean to say that I have been here for _only nine hours_?"

Erik nodded calmly.

"It feels as though I've been here a week," she muttered softly. She looked up slowly at Erik, trying to look at his horrible face without wincing. "Erik, I give up. I… I cannot do this anymore."

Erik was rendered speechless. It took him a moment for him to realize what she was saying. "You would stay with me?" he asked, not daring to believe it.

She smiled sadly. "Yes, Erik," she reaffirmed. "I would stay with you."

He shook his head. "But Erik could not keep Christine," he said, his voice filled with infinite sorrow. "She does not belong to him, for she does not love him." _Why _must he always be guilted into letting her go?

Now Christine was frozen. "What are you saying, Erik?" she said warily. Was this a trick he was playing?

"I will show you the way out," he said, getting to his feet and trying to hide the pain he felt in straining his injured leg and heart. He must be strong for Christine. He held his hand out to Christine, who took it hesitantly. She looked up at him in wonder, completely surprised that he was letting her go a second time. This had to be more painful than he seemed to show. He was acting incredibly detached—perhaps to avoid the pain of loss for as long as possible.

He opened the door in a mere five seconds, and once again, Christine marveled. What kind of man was she really leaving behind? He led her swiftly out onto the lake and rowed her back to the other shore. When he helped her out of the boat, he asked, "Would you need me to take you back?"

She nodded in the affirmative. There was something oddly comforting to her to know that Erik was with her in the dark. He always seemed to be leading her through the darkness. He was her protector.

It did not escape her notice that he was limping up the stairs as he took her back to the world. She had almost forgotten that he had tried to kill himself. It bothered her to know that she had affected him in such a way that he could not live without her. He could not move on. It bothered her that she would indirectly cause his death if she left him now. As much as she did not love him—she could not hate him—she did not want him to die. She was too good a creature to let this fact not affect her conscience.

After they climbed two flights of stairs, Christine stopped dead in her tracks. Erik did not seem to notice until she called out to him.

"Erik, what will you do when I am gone?"

His eyes clouded over. "Sleep."

It was the answer she was afraid of. She could not let him kill himself for her sake. She remembered the fear and sorrow she felt when she first walked into the house all of those hours ago. She felt as though something had completely went out of her, and she did not understand it.

"For how long, Erik?"

"Forever… I shall sleep forever." He smiled wistfully.

"_No_!" Christine shouted at him and rushed to him, pounding her little fists feebly against his chest. He looked down in surprise.

"What?" he breathed.

"No, Erik! You mustn't die." She began sobbing helplessly.

"Erik must die, for there is no other way for him to live."

"But there has to be! Erik, you must find a way!"

He took a hold of her flailing arms and grasped them gently, but firmly. "You must realize, there is no way for me to live, for I _cannot live without you_!"

And though she knew that she would regret it later, though she knew her heart did not belong to him; despite all of that, she said it anyways. She could not allow him to die, as the death of any soul was extremely sad indeed, and she could not forget anyone whose soul had touched her life, nor could she ever forgive herself for the death of any of those souls, no matter how miserable. No, she was a good creature who could not let anyone come to harm. She regretted that she had to be born this way, for when she uttered the next sentence, there was no going back.

"Then I shall stay with you."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

It was growing late, and Adalyn was getting nervous. She was supposed to have met Christine three hours ago, but she had yet to see her. Every time she saw a short, spindly girl with radiant yellow hair, her heart leapt to her throat, hoping against hope that it was the young girl she was searching for, but to no avail. The girls would turn around to show that it was not Christine's face.

The sun began to set behind a mass of stormy clouds, casting the streets in gloomy shadows. Adalyn knew that she could no longer wait for the girl—she would have to get a cab to get back to the Comte's manor on her own. She rushed back to the cab, avoiding any stranger that passed her on the sidewalks. The driver of the cab saw her at a distance and rushed to her to take her shopping bags from her. He glanced around, looking for the ex-diva to be trailing after the maid.

"Where is Mlle. Daaé?" he asked.

The maid shrugged her shoulders nervously. "She said that she was going to meet a friend by herself, and I was supposed to meet her three hours ago, but there is no sign of her."

He stood still for a moment, trying to register what she just said. "What do we do now?"

Adalyn looked away. "I'd prefer not to think about that."

"He could fire us for this!" he exclaimed. "Why did you let her out of your sight? Don't you know how obsessed he is over her safety?"

"I know," she said shamefully.

"He'll ring our necks for this, Adalyn!"

"Please, I know…"

"How could you be so…so…_stupid_ as to let her out of your sight?"

"_I know_, Jacque!" she snapped. Her face was red with fury that the driver would blame this all on her, and it was not as if she were stressed already. "You don't need to keep saying that! _You _shouldn't be worrying as much as _I _should! You aren't the one who lost her!"

He looked up to the sky helplessly and ran his fingers through his hair. "What do we do, then?" he asked again, this time softly, like an anxious child.

Adalyn was frightened—frightened that she would lose her job, frightened that she would not find another one, frightened that she would not be able to pay for her sick mother's medical bills. Her lips were pale and trembling as she looked up at Jacque with tears glistening like diamonds in her eyes.

"I don't know," she whispered.

* * *

Erik was incandescently and completely filled with ecstasy. He could shout, he could play music for hours, he could weep—he could do everything. He was brimming over with exquisite and breathtaking joy. He took Christine back to her room, his heart light and happy. There was a new purpose to his gait, and he hardly noticed the dull pain in his leg. Nothing could bring him down; Christine had lifted him from his dark and miserable state. He was saved! Never again would she leave his side—never again. Nothing, not even her tears or her fear of him would guilt him into letting her go again. This time, he gave her the chance to leave, and she chose to stay. If, sometime in the future, she should change her mind, he would never let her go. No, she promised that she would stay. She _promised_!

As she was about to disappear into her room, he caught hold of her hand and pulled her back to him. He ignored her feeble attempts to escape his grasp and brought her fingers up to his lips. When she saw that all he wanted to do was to bestow one of his cursed kisses on her hand, she stopped struggling and hoped that her compliance would satisfy him.

It did.

He lingered long upon her hand, as if it tasted sweeter than anything else he had ever tasted. Her skin was fire beneath his lips, and he wanted to go farther, kiss her forehead, her cheeks—even her lips. But he knew that she would not allow it. For love of her, he would not push her too far.

After a while, he released her and she withdrew slowly, as if in a trance. She stared at her hand oddly, as if it had grown an extra finger on it. Erik desperately wished to know what she was thinking, but he took some comfort in the fact that she had not recoiled away from him, disgusted that he would even dare to touch her in such a way. He could not decipher anything from looking at her face. It was blank as a slate.

The fact of the matter was that she did not know what she was thinking or feeling. Her thoughts were all jumbled as if there were a thousand voices speaking at once, and she could not concentrate on any particular voice. She knew for certain that she was confused—confused that she would have chosen to remain imprisoned with Erik than return to the earth above with Raoul—safe, wonderful, beautiful Raoul. Why did she care so much that Erik did not die? He was _supposed_ to be a monster that no one was _supposed _to care about, and yet she worried about him. Why?

"Christine."

She was snatched out of her reverie with that single word, and she looked up at Erik expectantly.

"I know that you may not love me, but…" He paused to take a deep breath. "I have no place to sleep since you destroyed my bed." He chuckled darkly at that, but stopped immediately when he saw how pale she suddenly became. He hung his head dejectedly.

"Never mind. I can see that you would never agree."

He slammed her door and slithered away from her door to his organ.

Christine shivered when she heard Erik start playing his organ furiously. She never thought that she would ever hear it ever again, but she thought wrong. If she had known better, there would have been no way she could have avoided this. Erik would have always found a way to take her away, whether or not he forced her to stay. He always had that strange power over her, though she doubted that he was aware of it. He had looked genuinely surprised when she demanded him to take her back with him, that she would stay forever by his side as his wife.

And what in heaven's name possessed her to say that she would stay with him? His life was wasted, and she still had her own to live. Why couldn't she have just left him to die while she went to live happily with Raoul? It was just as it was that night with Raoul on the rooftop, underneath the gilded safety of Apollo's lyre. He had urged her to run away with him that night, but she refused. She felt that she had to stay and sing one last time, else she would break his heart. It was strange; for all the times he hurt her, she felt that she could never hurt him in return. Not because she was afraid of what he would do to her (he went mad when he found out she was leaving him. That was an incident she was not eager to experience again), but because she could not bear to think that she was causing him pain. Why must she be so softhearted?

Why did it have to be her?

The music that Erik had been playing softly suddenly burst forth, exceeding any sound barriers, and surrounded her. The music was wonderful and frightening, and Christine felt the need to go to Erik, while at the same time, she only wanted to cower in a corner with her knees drawn up to her chest.

In the end, she retreated to her corner, eyes wide with the feelings that the music was invoking upon her. She had to block it out of her mind, force it out of her memory, plug up her ears—anything to make her not go to Erik against her will. It was too strong for her, and if she listened long enough, Christine doubted that she would have enough will to withstand the power of his music.

The music suddenly changed, and Christine looked up at the door in surprise. It was vastly different from anything she had ever heard him play before. Instead of fiery and passionate, it was quiet and full of love—true love. The kind of love that was shared between people who truly loved each other. Calm, safe love, like the love she felt for her dear Raoul.

Oh, Raoul!

She bit her lip and fought back a sob; this music reminded her too much of him. She almost wanted to get up and tell Erik to stop playing, but she was not sure if that would please him very much. After all, all of the music that he wrote now was written for her, and it would devastate him to know that she did not want to hear it.

Instead, she covered her ears, though it did little to block out his wonderfully tragic music, and crawled to her bed. The satin sheets enveloped her, and she could have sighed blissfully if it were not for the pain she felt deep within her chest. She felt like she could die, as she knew that she would never see Raoul again. She would never be sheltered in his loving arms, could never hear his soothing voice murmuring in her ear. His kind face would never appear before her again; Erik would never allow her to see him. No, she was prisoner to the Phantom now. She was doomed to live forever in his oppressive shadow, feel his obsessive love through his music. Soon, she would forget everything that was good and beautiful and her every thought would be of darkness and eternal night.

It rained that night, but Christine would have never known. She was shedding tears of her own, unaware that the heavens wept for her, too. Nothing could dull the pain except for her tears, so she let them rain down her cheeks and wet her pillow. Perhaps she could die. But, no. She had given her whole heart to Raoul, and she could not die if she did not have her heart with her. Some other organ beat mechanically within her chest, but her heart, all her love, was with Raoul. When she was done here, once Erik died of natural causes—surely it would not take long, as he was nearly twice her age—she would return to Raoul and reclaim her heart. If only he would safeguard it and keep it from harm, then she could live through this season of grief and pain.

Until then, she would be trapped in this never-ending darkness.

When she finally fell asleep, long after Erik's music ceased and was now doing who knew what; when her rivers of tears ceased to flow, the rain outside slowly pattered to a stop. But she would never know that. She was alone.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

It was almost ten in the evening when Raoul heard with relief the car chug its way up the driveway. Raoul had been almost sick with worry; Christine had promised him she would be back sometime around four in the afternoon, and here it was, six hours later. He couldn't wait to charge out the doors to take her into his arms and assure himself that she was still with him.

He was outside in a flash. He almost called out Christine's name, but then he noticed that there were only two people climbing out of the car: a man and a woman. The woman was much too tall to be Christine.

"Where's Christine, Adalyn?" he called out.

It was too dark for him to notice the look of panic on her face when her master called out to her. This was the moment she was afraid of. If he did not get rid of her tonight, or possibly tomorrow, then she would most likely keep her job. But if he was angry enough, she could easily be out on the streets before sunup.

"I swear, Monsieur!" she rushed. "I did not mean for it to happen! We were shopping, and Mademoiselle Daaé told me that she wished to see one of her friends, and that she would like to go alone. She told me to meet her in a few hours, but she never appeared!"

Raoul turned dreadfully pale. "Did she say what friend she was seeing, or where that friend lived?"

Adalyn shook her head despairingly. "No, Monsieur. She only said that her friend lived close by the Palais Garnier, and that she would meet up with me there."

"She went to the Opera House?"

"No, she said her friend lived close by."

Raoul buried his face in his hands. He should have gone with her. If she had been visiting a friend, especially one who lived by the Opera House, the monster could have seen her and carried her away, down into the dark world he inhabited. Raoul should have been there for her, to protect her from the monster if he tried to make any advances. If only she had just let him come with her, all of this mess could have been prevented.

"Monsieur?"

Raoul looked up again. "Tomorrow," he decided, "I shall go into town and look for her. You and you," he said, pointing to the maid and the driver, "both of you will come with me."

He turned on his heel and hurried back into the house, leaving a very relieved Adalyn and Jacque. If it was up to him, he would be headed into Paris at that very moment, but he doubted the police would listen to his far-fetched plea this late at night. In addition, the monster seemed to be a nighttime creature, and Raoul would never get to Christine when the evening was not on his side.

Later that night, he got out of bed—he couldn't sleep as endless thoughts ran through his mind of how the monster was torturing his dear fiancée—and went to her room and wished her back by his side. He sat at her desk and closed his eyes. Breathing in deeply and slowly, he drank in the scent of the room, the scent of her perfume. It was wonderful, and for a moment, he could almost feel her presence.

Alas, but she was not there. Raoul sighed heavily and opened his eyes again. If only—if only he had went with her…

He spotted something out of the corner of his eye—a newspaper article. He picked it up curiously. Since when did Christine ever read the newspaper? He skimmed over it and noticed that it was only the obituaries. Perhaps she had been worried about Mme. Valérius? Perhaps that was the reason she wanted to see her earlier that day?

With another sigh, he dropped the piece of paper on the desk again, and the moment it landed, he saw it. In that very moment, Raoul understood everything: why she left, why she skirted any promises that would keep her out of the Opera House, why she said that nothing bad would happen to her. Despite the fact that he implored her not to set foot into the building, Christine did it anyway, because she had believed the three words that were printed on the page.

_Erik is dead._

She had gone back.

* * *

"Christine, it's time to come out. You've been in there long enough!"

Erik paused to listen, but he heard nothing on the other side of the door except for an almost inaudible sigh. Normally, he would not be this patient, but Christine had come back to him, had chosen to stay with him of her own free will, and he felt that he had deep and endless wells of patience. Now he was feeling incredibly lonely, and he wanted his wife to be with him again.

"Christine, now!" he said sternly.

He heard her stirring slightly inside, but she still did not come to the door. From the sounds coming from within the room, Erik judged that she was on the left side of the bed, farthest from the door. He threw his voice inside and whispered in her ear. She always reacted to his voice when it was close to her.

"Christine, you mustn't stay in here forever, you know. You should come out."

He waited for the desired results, but, much to his surprise, she did not come. Something must be terribly wrong; she was never this unresponsive to him.

Quickly, he opened her door. It was locked, but locks served no purpose for him, as they could never keep him out. Christine was sitting up in bed, but though Erik was being noisier than usual, she did not seem to hear or notice him at all. In fact, the room was completely dark. The candles had burned out ages ago, which Erik thought quite unusual. Christine, he knew, hated the dark, and the fact that she was totally unaware of it unnerved him.

"Christine?"

No response.

"Christine, what's wrong?"

Again, no response. Her eyes were glazed and dead, and she stared unblinkingly forward.

"Christine!" he shouted.

She sighed.

That seemed to be the best reaction he was going to get from her using his voice. He didn't want to touch her for fear that she would cringe away from him, but he knew that he had to do something. She looked terribly ill and pale, and she looked as though she hadn't slept in days. There were deep, purple bruises under her eyes from the lack of sleep, and her eyes looked almost as sunken as his own. There was no color in her lips or her cheeks, and her hair was dull and limp.

She looked dead.

There were few things that could frighten Erik, but this apparition of death shook him to the core that he shivered involuntarily. Once, he would have accepted it if Christine was not responsive to his advances, but he had never wanted her to _be_ dead, especially after that fateful night, when she had given him all the happiness that the world could offer. He loved her, and he wanted to offer that same happiness to her.

Trembling, Erik made his way over to her and touched her arm. Though his own skin was usually a few degrees cooler than normal, on account that he lived five cellars underground, Christine felt as though she were made of ice. She was freezing!

When she did not respond, he shook her arm gently at first, and then grew more persistent with each shake. By the time she slowly turned her unseeing eyes to him, her whole body was rocking violently under his hand.

Her eyes focused on him, but there was absolutely nothing in her look. Erik knew that look from anywhere. He knew the horrible emptiness of losing the most precious thing he loved. He knew what it was like to feel the need not to live or breath. He cursed himself for underestimating her love for the boy, for here she was, broken-hearted and completely devoid of anything.

She was dying.

He pulled on her arms to urge her out of the bed, but he might as well have pushed a rag doll and told it to walk. She was completely unresponsive, so Erik slipped his arms around her and carried her into the kitchen. She was so light, and her body felt so incredibly delicate as it lay limply in his arms. He seated her down in a chair and prepared a lunch of soup for her. He set a bowl of steaming soup in front of her and handed her a spoon. When she did not take it, he put the spoon in her hand, but as soon as he let go, the utensil clattered onto the table.

He crouched down in front of her, his face right in front of hers, but she did not seem to see. Her eyes were completely unfocused and glazed—she might as well have been blind. Slowly, he reached up and took off his mask. He knew that if she were in her right mind, she would have screamed. In fact, that was the very reaction he wanted from her. Her unresponsiveness frightened him to no end.

In unmasking himself, he received nothing in return—not even so much as a gasp. He had elicited nothing in showing his dead face to her dead eyes. He brought his face closer to hers, and closer still, in the hope that his close proximity would jar her out of her trance.

It did nothing. She was unfazed. He was an inch away from her, and she still did not seem to know that he was there. He brought his lips over to her ear and whispered his plea:

"Please, Christine," he begged. "Please wake up!"

Nothing.

In despair, Erik leaned away, sighing to himself. He took the spoon, scooped up some of the soup, and brought it to her pale lips. When her mouth did not open, he took her jaw in his other hand and force-fed her. Once the food was in her mouth, she swallowed mechanically, but there was nothing else. She continued to stare straight forward, unaware of any of her surroundings.

He sang to her for the rest of the afternoon. If there was anything else that would wake her up, it had to be his music. And indeed, the moment he opened his mouth to sing to her, something in her eyes flickered, but it was quickly lost in the haze of her depression. It gave him cause to hope, though, and he knew that he just had to find the right music to arouse her being.

At one point, he brought his violin out and played from _Die Auferweckung Lazarus_, using only his violin and nothing else. From what Christine had told him in the past, her father had played it often when he was feeling melancholy, and the piece held no value to her unless it was played with the violin. Erik doubted that she had heard the entire oratorio, but that did not matter. All that mattered was that he somehow bring her back to him.

She did react somewhat to his music. Instead of staring at nothing, she stared at the violin, at his long, pale fingers that danced across the strings. Erik noticed, of course; he was watching her very carefully. He played with more fervor and passion, his spirit rising in the hope that he had finally found the music that would heal her.

The music that Erik played was a ray of light that pierced into the gloomy void of Christine's depression. She could see her father in that light, playing his wonderful violin. She had missed the violin. It was what brought her to music, and it fed her and sustained both her and her father after her mother's death. _Die Auferweckung Lazarus_ was one of the more despairing pieces that he had played when he was thinking of his dear, deceased wife. It had always made Christine cry.

Erik put every ounce of his soul into the music when he started to see her weep. Normally, he would not have wanted to make her cry, but at this point, he wanted her to be anything but dead and unfeeling; he was afraid of that, more than anything else. He watched her transform under his music. Her face glowed; her tears ran unchecked; her body trembled with the splendor of his music.

Her eyes traveled from his hands to his masked face, but all she could see before her was the vision of her father's face, smiling down at her.

"Daddy!" she whispered.

The music stopped, and she was blind again.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Christine did not know where she was. She was lost, confused, wandering in oblivion. She could see nothing, feel nothing, hear nothing. If she moved, then she would fall in the endless void of darkness, and she would never rise again.

She felt the unmistakable sense that she was drowning, of being buried under the nothingness—but she did not try to fight it, did not wish to be saved from it, for she had no reason to live in the real world. It was too harsh, too cruel; nothing in it was fair. Good people suffered for the sake of the whims of evil. Something deep within her knew this, though nothing was processing in her mind, and it told her to give up, to give in to the world of the dead.

It was black; it was blank; it was… absolutely nothing. Sometimes, she would feel something touch her, but she would shrink away from it to be enfolded in the suffocating blanket of nothingness.

An angel sang to her, and she thought that she was close to heaven. It pierced through the dark like beam of light in a misty fog, a fresh breeze in the stagnant and unmoving air. She could feel it deep within her soul, and though it was an angel singing, she could not _see_, could not really _hear_ what he was saying to her. The angel stopped, even though she did not want him to stop, but then she saw her father on his violin. He was playing the most heavenly music; he was a much greater violinist in heaven than he ever was on earth. She cried with the joy of the vision, of her dear, long dead father standing right in front of her. She stood and reached out to him, but he was too far away. He beckoned to her and smiled gently, so she tried again. She could not move, and she cried out in fear. Her arm was stretched desperately towards him, but her other limbs refused to move. She could feel the darkness washing over her again, but she did not want it to. For fear that she would succumb to the nothingness again, she fought against it, trying to feel the safety of her father's love.

But then her father disappeared; the violin fell silent. There was no reason for her to fight, now, as there was nothing there to fight for. She resorted back to her stupor, which was of nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. She could not compare it to anything, for there was nothing.

Nothing.

Blank blackness.

Empty void.

Vacant silence.

Nothing.

She couldn't remember the light, couldn't remember her life. So was this death? Was death nothing, then? Did humans fear death because it was nothing? No heaven, no hell, no afterlife. Nothing. She couldn't feel any shock at the revelation, because she could not feel anything.

The violin was playing again, some haunting melody, but it was not her father. She could see Death playing for her, but she had nothing to fear. She was already dead, was she not? Death was to be her constant company, now. She was married to Death, though she could not remember how she might have died. A broken heart? Yes, it must have been that. She was taken away from love, so love killed her and handed her over to Death. That must have been what happened.

Death was playing something familiar, something from a former life… It was Love, the Love that had killed her. She felt a sudden rush of anger that Death would mock her former pain. Pain was supposed to have died along with her body, but as Death played the song of Love, she could feel the wound reopening—a deep, fresh gash of interminable pain. She should have known better; pain can never end. It follows the soul beyond the grave. Love abandoned her, but everything else, everything that had caused her distress in her former life was with her now—pain, anger, fear, sorrow, grief.

Her vision became clearer. Death looked more and more recognizable, as if he were a person from another lifetime. He was wearing fine clothes—funeral clothes from the looks of it. It was only fitting, she thought wryly to herself, that Death would be dressed for funerals. He was looking anxiously at her, and she wondered why he should be. He was hurting her, mocking her with the song of Love. She saw it all as if she were all at the end of a very long tunnel, but he was coming closer, faster. Dizziness possessed her senses for a moment, as everything seemed to be coming straight towards her. Objects seemed to be appearing out of nowhere, and the black haze was quickly disappearing.

The music was louder, as if she had resurfaced from underneath water and was hearing everything clearly. Memories flooded back into her mind. She remembered sitting on the floor of her room, listening to this very song as she slipped into her depression. She remembered begging Erik to take her back with him, that she would stay forever by his side. Why in heaven's name did she want to go back?

As beautiful as it sounded, the music was grating against her nerves. She wanted it to stop, to disappear, and to cease to exist.

"Stop," she whispered, but the music only became louder and more passionate. It burned her soul, though not with the fire of _Don Juan_. She looked up and glared at Death and realized with surprise that it was Erik.

"Stop it," she repeated a little louder, but he did not.

In a flurry of skirts and flying limbs, she flew at him with a furious cry. Even after he paused in his music making, she snatched the violin out of his hands and threw it to the ground, then turned on him and beat his chest with her fists. He did not seem to flinch, no matter how hard she hit him.

"I hate you!" she screamed at him. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!"

Desperately, she whirled around, looking for a place to hide. Now that she was no longer encompassed by the never-ending nothingness, there was light, and she almost felt blinded by its suddenness. She noticed a door leading into a darker room, and she rushed away to it. Inside, she found a familiar bed, the comforter red and warm. It was safe, and she leapt into the covers. She wrapped the blankets tightly around her and buried her head inside, her breath hitched and ragged. Her eyes were closed tightly in the darkness, and she wished desperately not to feel anything again. It was not totally clear to her what exactly happened between the night she returned to Erik and the moment she heard his music again, but she wanted to go back into whatever state she had been in.

As she trembled and shook inside the warm covers, she heard a voice, barely inaudible, next to her, but she did not dare turn to it. The voice was soft and pleading, and she could hear sorrow as deep as ancient rivers as it ran through her soul with heartbreaking sadness.

"Don't go, Christine. Don't leave me again… Your poor Erik needs you to stay. I could not bear to see you dead again… I believe that I would die if I see you like that again…"

The voice fell silent again, but she was unresponsive. The moment the voice started speaking, her breath caught in her throat, and she could not release it. She still held it within her, and the stillness calmed her frantic heart. Erik said nothing else, and she could hear no movement by the bed, though she knew that he never made a sound. She did not peek out from under the sheets to check if he really were gone. Instead, she remained hidden, her thoughts wheeling and spiraling, and even as she slipped into unconsciousness, she was still experiencing vertigo.

But as she fell into the blessedly into her empty dreams, the memory of Erik's sad voice still echoed in her mind, and she wondered…

_What exactly happened?

* * *

_

After endless days of nothing going right for him, Erik was surprised, to say the least, that she should react so suddenly and so violently when he was playing his music to her as he usually did. Though he was slightly confused, he was elated.

She talked to him. She looked straight at him. She moved of her own accord. She even felt passion, towards him! True, it was not the passion he longed from her, but after weeks of nothing, he was happy at all that she was feeling anything at all for him. For the past few weeks, she had been almost a corpse, and he had tried so hard to bring her back to life. Recently, though, he felt the need to give up, and as he played for her, he did it half-heartedly, knowing that she would only become more reclusive than she was before. But then, she came back to life.

She was alive.

The words were sweet and beautiful to him, and it took him a long time for him to realize that what had just occurred actually happened. It seemed so surreal, such a beautiful thing could not have possibly happened to him. Nothing good ever happened to him.

She was alive…

But that also meant that she could die again, and this time, it could be worse.

With horror, he rushed into her room and stood by her bed. He watched her still form underneath the comforter, and he wished that he had stopped her from coming back in here. If he kept her with him, he could have kept her from falling back into her depression.

"Don't go, Christine," he pleaded, his voice thick with the tears that threatened to overcome him. "Don't leave me again… Your poor Erik needs you to stay. I could not bear to see you dead again… I believe that I would die if I see you like that again…"

There was no movement from the bed; she had probably slipped into her state of shock again. With a heavy and depressed sigh, Erik sat down in the chair and watched her motionless form, waiting for the horrible nightmares to start. The night pressed on, and she began to thrash about, tangling her limbs with the sheets. Her face was contorted and she moaned with the sort of pain that could only be felt in the heart.

Erik closed his eyes, wishing that he could do something, but he had done everything he could. He had tried multiple medicines he had invented; he had tried playing for her; he had even tried talking to her for a whole day straight, resulting in a sore throat for three days. There was nothing else he could do, but he refused to give up.

For the rest of that night, he spoke softly with her, consoling her with his hypnotic voice, and it seemed to help, a little. Eventually, his head dropped to his chest and slept for a few hours. When he snapped his eyes open again, it was because of Christine. She was sleeping fitfully, of course, but she was mumbling something. He couldn't understand what she was saying, but her voice was laced with fear and uncertainty.

With a heavy heart, he rose to his feet, placed a cool hand on her forehead, and whispered, "I'll be back, soon."

But he wasn't back soon. He sat in the library, staring at the wall and noticing nothing. How long did this have to last? Would there be no end to her depression? He was no longer sure if he was capable of all the endless pain. It had been so long since he had seen the light shining from her eyes. He was beginning to forget things about her—the sound of her voice, the sparkle in her eyes, the jovial sound of her laugh… not that she laughed much in his presence. Still, all he could seem to remember about her was the empty stare she so often gave him and the blank look on her face. His bride was as good as dead. He killed everything he touched, and it was not fair.

There was a faint sound coming from within Christine's room, but Erik did not bother looking up. He knew that she was having nightmares. He hated to be there when she was—it hurt him too much.

But then something happened that he was not expecting. It took him so much by surprise; he thought that he would have a heart attack. How ironic that this should happen just as he began to give up, he thought sarcastically to himself later.

Christine walked in with her eyes full of life.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

"Monsieur, please, you have to listen to me—"

"Oh, and please, pray tell. Where do you think she could possibly be?" the detective replied, his patience running thin. For the past few weeks, this hothead youth kept showing up, begging for some action where action was not required. The lost singer was of no importance, and there were more important things that the police had to worry about. "Don't tell me that she's being held hostage by a madman five stories underground."

Raoul slammed his fist on the table. "She is! Will no one listen to me?"

His temper did not faze the detective in the least.

"_Comte_," he snapped, accentuating the word as if trying to let him know that a man so high up in society should not be acting so childish. "Please, restrain yourself or I will have you carried out. I assure you, I have already sent my men down there, and there is nothing under the Opera House except for some storage facilities and a few old communard prison cells. The only creatures at home there are rats and spiders."

Raoul opened his mouth to protest, but the detective raised his hand for silence.

"I suggest that you go somewhere more logical. If she has run away from you, then she is probably in some café singing for money. Or perhaps she is singing in the streets."

"Monsieur, you don't understand. She wouldn't run away from me like that! She loved me, and we were to be married. But something happened, and she has been kidnapped by an obsessed monster who thinks that he loves her!"

"Oh, and can you tell us who this monster is?" he asked, pulling out a pen. A name would do him great good. It would give the boy a reason to believe that the police were going to go out looking for the singer, get him out of the office, and then leave the detective alone to go back to his work. Of course, the slip of paper would be forgotten and eventually thrown away, with no one the wiser.

"Erik."

The detective wrote it down. "Surname?"

Silence.

He looked up expectantly, waiting for the name. "Monsieur? Do you know the surname?"

"He doesn't have one."

Hissing through his teeth, he crumpled up the now useless piece of paper and glared at the poor boy. "Well do you have anything else to waste my time with?"

"He is the Opera Ghost."

There was a skeptical silence, and then the detective boomed into laughter. He had never heard anything quite so amusing before.

"So we should listen to ghost stories, now? Well, I suppose we have nothing to worry about if she's been spirited away by the Opera Ghost." He pushed several papers aside and rose from his seat. "Now, if you excuse me, I have to solve a murder. At least I have some _facts_ there. I have no time to waste on runaway orphans."

He held his door open and invited the Comte to leave. Raoul sighed dejectedly and left the office, looking rather pitiful. The detective shook his head sadly. He wondered why the bright youth had to waste his time on this opera singer. All the women who came out of the Opera House were all fickle, and it was about time that the young man realized it. He wished that he could help him, but he just did not have any time to chase after women who likely did not want to be found.

Within thirty minutes, he had completely forgotten the matter.

* * *

Something had happened, and Erik refused to tell her. He would not explain why Christine could not remember however many days—or even weeks—worth of memory. He simply told her that she had been dead, and that now she had come back to him. But that did not tell her anything. It did not tell her why her memory recalled…nothing. There was nothing. She could not remember anything except shivering in her bed, listening to Erik's music and crying herself to sleep.

What had she been crying about?

Oh, right. She had succumbed. She had decided to stay with Erik. She would never see Raoul again. No comfort, no solace. There wasn't anything for her now except to be a perfect little wife for Erik.

_That's _what she had been crying about.

But that did not explain why she could not remember anything that happened afterwards.

She wandered into his room where he was composing and stood at the entrance awkwardly, waiting for him to notice her. When he did not turn around to face her, she cleared her throat uncertainly.

"Erik?"

He looked away from his organ and stood when he realized that she wanted him. "Yes, my love?"

Now that she was under his scrutinizing stare, she wished that she never decided to seek him out. She hovered near the door though, as if it were a safe haven. It made her feel better that Erik had no way of blocking her exit before she could escape his presence.

"What…what happened?"

He cocked his head as if he didn't understand. "What do you mean, my dear?" he replied, though she knew very well that he wasn't so oblivious.

"You know perfectly well what I'm talking about," she snapped.

He shook his head as if her irritation were enduring. "No, I'm afraid not, Christine."

She sighed and passed her hand over her eyes. "Erik," she said, her voice distraught. She might have went on, only she suddenly felt a cold skeletal hand pulling her own away from her face.

"Please, my dear, please don't cover your face. I like seeing it when you talk. There are enough masks around here as it is."

She snatched her hand away from him, horrified that he was touching her, and didn't even try to pretend that she understood what he was talking about. Forgetting why she was even in his room talking to him, she rushed away from his presence and shut herself away in her room. For the next hour, she sat down on her bed, rocking herself and holding her hand, the one that Erik had dared to touch, and rubbed it as if she were trying to cleanse it of the filth that covered it. She felt… blemished, as if his touching her had vandalized her. She wished, not for the last time, that she were back at the Chagny household under the protective wing of Raoul's love. She wondered what he was doing right at that moment, wondered if he was especially worried for her.

If only she could see him one last time.

But why should she regret it so much? It was her choice to leave her dear love behind for a monster in the dark, one that had grown on her as her angel and had ended up being the traitorous thing it was. Why must she have the affections of a twisted and deformed creature? What had she ever done to deserve this? Surely she had always been the girl her father wanted her to be—the good, understanding girl who would love everyone as they deserved.

She gasped and tried to forget the thought, but the words echoed in her mind, reverberating through her soul and making her feel guilty for her deeds and actions.

Understanding. Love. The two things that Erik had only ever asked from her, and yet she still refused. Perhaps that was why the angel had never made its appearance to her? Because she was a bad girl? Her father had often warned her that her angel would not come if she did not obey him—and here she discovered that she had disobeyed him after all these years.

But Erik didn't necessarily _deserve_ her understanding or her love… did he? After all, he had lied to her time and time again. He told her that _he_ was her angel, had fooled her and pretended to be everything she believed in during the months he trained her voice, and then he had cruelly taken all that she held dear—her faith that her father had finally sent her the Angel, that he still cared for her, even on his heavenly pedestal—when he made his first honest appearance to her as he truly was—a demon. Everything she loved him for crumbled into ash, and she regretted him for that.

What else had he ever done? Besides when she made him go mad—and she knew that one night was her fault; if she had never went crying to Raoul, Erik would have never known her thoughts and feelings, and nothing so horrible would have ever happened—he had always been so kind to her. He tried his hardest to offer his penance to her for cheating, and she had never accepted it.

What was her father thinking of her right now? Was he displeased? It hurt her to know that she might be causing her own, dear father to frown in heaven at her expense. She was such a wicked girl to cause an angel unhappiness.

Suddenly, she felt the need to make up for her actions. It was something her father would have wanted her to do, after all. After all, had he taught her to be softhearted, had taught her to be the first to swallow her pride. She could hear his words now…

_Life is only as hard as you make it. Don't make it more difficult than it needs to be._

With a sigh, she slid off of the bed and made her way towards the door. Just as she was about to turn the knob, though, she realized what she was about to do, and she felt her limbs freeze in sudden anxiety. How does one apologize to Erik? She had never done so, before—not sincerely, at least.

Funny, she thought to herself. It seemed that he was constantly begging for her forgiveness, and she was the one who was using him. She had never noticed that before, but she could see it plainly now. Every time he did something wrong, he would fall and crawl on the floor, imploring for her sweet forgiveness, and she had always granted it immediately so that she could be sent to the surface sooner.

Perhaps she should just put this whole mess behind her—he seemed to want her to do that, after all. Besides, what did she have to apologize for? She hadn't done anything recently that demanded her penitence.

Shrugging, she stepped out of her room. She glanced out, and much to her relief, Erik was not in the room. She closed her door and dutifully made her way to the kitchen. But as she turned around, she found Erik standing impossibly close, and she nearly yelped. It was difficult to contain her desire to run back into her room to calm herself again.

How did he _do _that?

"Erik!" she gasped, letting him know how he caught her off guard. "Must you always be so… so… Must you always do that?"

He cocked his head curiously. Perhaps if his face were not covered, his eyebrows would be knotted together in confusion. Did he really not know how unnerving it was to creep up on people without announcing his presence?

"Do what, my dear?"

Goodness, she thought to herself. He really _didn't_ know!

"Could you at least make just a _little _bit of noise when you decide to walk in?" she cried exasperatedly. "You always scare me when I turn around and you're just… suddenly _there_ when you weren't a moment before!"

She could hear the frown in his voice when he spoke. "I'm sorry, my dear. I never really noticed. I wasn't born an elephant, you know."

He received a blank stare.

She brought a hand to her face and rubbed her temples, irritated. Really, all of his cryptic remarks and impossible riddles were starting to give her a headache. What on earth was so significant about an elephant, anyways? She never saw one before, but she knew that they were awfully big. She heard one of the chorus girls say that they could crush an entire household with one foot. If she were asked of her opinion, she would have said that such a creature sounded a lot like Erik—after all, he seemed to destroy everything he came in contact with.

"Never mind," she muttered. She couldn't even begin to solve his unconventional behavior. She turned away from him and went into the kitchen. She didn't know why—she wasn't even hungry, though it was dinnertime. She just felt the need to go somewhere else instead of stand next to Erik with his strange yet watchful silence while she would wait awkwardly for something to say. Turning her back to do something else helped distract her.

And why was she seeking distraction? She had an apology to make to Erik, but now that she had the opportunity, she shied at the chance for fear of making herself look like a fool—or for fear of bruising her pride. But then, why did she even _need_ to apologize? It wasn't as if he even needed it. She was his prisoner for life… for love. Besides, she didn't even want to be there with him. She loved the ground above with the sunlight and the green grass and noble trees, and Erik loved his darkness. They weren't fit to be together.

Feeling justified, Christine walked into the kitchen and stopped headlong in her tracks.

"Erik," she said slowly and carefully. "What is this?"

Laid out before them was a beautiful arrangement—she didn't know that cooking could be such an art, but Erik proved her wrong in her assumptions, as he usually did. The food looked impeccable, masterfully cooked and presented. It looked almost too beautiful to touch. And as if the dinner was not enough, every inch of remaining table space was covered with gaudy flowers—beautiful, yes, but too extravagant and obviously expensive for her taste. Erik had evidently been busy while she had been holed up in her room, and for some reason, his thoughtfulness touched her.

She refused to let it show, though. Since Erik had not spoken yet, she tore her eyes away from the ludicrous dinner table to glance at him. His stare was unreadable and intense, so she looked away hastily, uncomfortable.

"Will you be eating with me?" she asked, glancing at the table again. There was only one place set, but another chair sat to the side as if waiting for someone to sit in it.

"Only if you want me to." He was nonchalant, but she knew by the excited glow in his eyes that he hoped for her to let him stay. She never liked dinner with him—mostly because he would sit and watch her eat, and frankly, she felt annoyed and uneasy under his scrutinizing stare. But his eyes were practically sparkling with boyish anticipation, and Christine could not refuse him.

Biting her lip and cringing inwardly at herself, she nodded and turned to sit down, then waited for Erik to follow. Much to her surprise, he was still standing by the door, his eyes wide with disbelief. Did he really expect her to refuse him? Moving with deliberate slowness, he made his way over to his chair, watching her carefully to see if she would start at his approach—but she did not. She bowed her head and offered up a silent prayer as her faith demanded. It was strange to pray in the devil's presence, she thought bitterly to herself, but she quelled the thought immediately. Erik was a man, not a devil, as he kept reminding her.

Finishing her prayer, she looked up to see that Erik was seated across from her, poised in his chair as if he might bolt from the room. She wished he would, so that he could leave her in peace and so that she would not feel guilty for asking him to leave.

Yet she gave all the signs that she wanted him to stay. She didn't know why she did it; it just seemed natural for her to do so.

She picked up her fork and began eating. The food was divine, which did not surprise her; Erik would accept nothing less that perfection. So why was it her who he had to fall in love with? She knew she was far from perfect, and she was making no effort at all to make things easier for him. So why did he even bother with her? Why did he even bother trying to make her happy when he knew she would never achieve the normalcy he always dreamed of?

"Erik," she started, but then hesitated. "I'm sorry" was on the tip of her tongue, but she could not bring herself to say it. What was wrong with her? Swallowing the lump in her throat, she murmured the next best thing instead. "Thank you."

He nodded passively, but his eyes glowed ever brighter. Christine thought it strange that his eyes could hold all the expressions and emotions while the rest of him was cool and detached, inexpressive.

"What are you doing tonight?" she asked, though she thought she already knew.

He shrugged gracefully. "Whatever you want to do."

So it was one of _those_ nights, when Erik felt that he could bestow anything happily upon her. It bothered her sometimes, because he would lavish her with expensive and useless gifts—bright and sparkling necklaces and bracelets, dresses made out of yards and yards of silk and taffeta, flowers that would only die in a week. What use were any of those trinkets? She cared not a whit for them.

"Could… could we go for a walk?" she whispered tentatively. "Outside?"

His eyes darkened.

She sighed and looked down at her hands, disappointed. "Or not."

"Later, perhaps," he said, but she knew they would not. Perchance they never would.

Other than that, she knew of nothing she wanted to do. Go to her room and sulk; be disgustingly pitiful; read a book in Erik's presence—which she knew for certain she did not want to do. Singing was out of the question; she would not sing for him anymore. She hated the music, and she hated the pain that it brought to her. The only way to avoid the pain was to ignore music altogether. She had contrived a way to disregard his music altogether.

Well, not contrive—she had no plans, no schemes for a way to avoid it all. For the first few days after she… woke up, Erik had asked if she would like to continue their lessons. She only told him that she was too tired. Finally, after a week or so, Erik became angry and would not give her a choice in the matter. He took a hold of her wrists and dragged—no, not drag. As angry as he seemed, she could still see that he was gentle with her—forced her to stand behind him at the piano. He played, but when she opened her mouth for fear of his anger, her voice could not come. She missed her cue several times. Furious, he had whirled around to rebuke her, but when he saw her tears falling fast, he seemed dumbstruck. The silence had stretched on, no one spoke, and she could not even hear him breathe. When she finally opened her eyes, she saw him quietly and clinically observing her. As she pulled in a shaky breath, he nodded and turned to the keys again.

He did not have enough time to play the first note when her soft voice—soft, but it pierced and broke the silence—came through.

"I cannot… please, I… Erik, I cannot do it…"

Her tears, silent before then, suddenly broke free and her sobs ripped the air, and each breath she drew was slow and painful. She didn't understand what was happening to her, but it almost felt as though her heart were breaking.

He let her cry for a long while, never touching her—he understood that she could not have him touch her in any intimate way possible. She just cried and cried and cried. When she finished, he took her arm and gently pulled her up to her feet and guided her to her room. Exhausted, she closed the door on him and fell into bed without changing.

He never asked her to sing after that.

She was grateful to him for that, if she was grateful to him for anything.

"Christine?"

His voice broke her reverie, and she snapped her head up to look at him. The expression in his eyes was unreadable.

"I said we might go some other time, but not now. It is nasty weather out, right now."

She didn't know whether to believe him. Was the weather ever horrible in the summer? Was it even summertime? How long had she been there?

"I suppose I'll just go to bed, now, then," she murmured quietly.

He nodded, stood, and offered her his arm. Although it was considered impossibly rude to refuse this simple request, Christine knew full well that he was not expecting her to take his arm, but she did so anyways. After all, her father would be have been disappointed in her if she did not. But why should she care? He was dead; he left her.

She could feel Erik's entire body tighten when she laid her hand on his arm. No, he had not been expecting her acquiescence, and it made her feel like gloating that she had been unpredictable for Erik the Impossible.

He stopped on the threshold of her door and dropped his arm. Before he could close her door once she was through the door, though, she turned and looked up at him.

"Thank you," she whispered. "Truly."

His eyes were confused and hopeful. "My pleasure," he granted.

After that, she went deeper into her room, considering the evening done and over with, but as the door slowly closed behind her, she could hear him whisper so softly, she wondered if he even said it. "Good night, my love… my only..."

"My only" what? The door was closed before she had any time to ask, or even draw in a breath to ask. Shrugging her shoulders, she tried not to let it bother her, but it was hard. The night had given her more insight than she would have rather admitted—she didn't want to understand the monster. She didn't want to become emotionally attached so that when he died, if he died, she would not be heartbroken. But even so, she knew it was too late. No matter her attempts to stay uninvolved, Erik was already a part of her. Without her knowing, he had a place in her heart, all because he was so… so…

She couldn't complete the thought—she didn't even understand it completely herself.

But it couldn't be… no. It couldn't. It was impossible. She was the victim—he was the offender. She must feel nothing, even if it was not something her father wished she would do. Her father had not been there for her since he had died, and surely he would understand her situation, wouldn't he? He cared that much, didn't he?

Who was she fooling? Her father was dead and cold in his grave—he could do nothing for her; she was alone

All alone.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

She wasn't alone. No matter how many times she thought herself to be completely alone, _he_ would always be there. He was like some sort of parasite; a vampire, almost. It was almost as if her life and will were being sucked out of her, and she felt drained. As much as she wished it, she could no longer stay in her room and avoid Erik's company. She was losing perspective. She was like some sort of spirited horse dying slowly in its captivity. The longer she was fenced in, the more she forgot; and the more she forgot, the less she desired solitude or the life that she once had.

So she sought him out.

It was strange for her to be in his company willingly. For so long, she had only tolerated his presence because she knew that he would let her go eventually. But now… now she was with him because… well, because she _wanted_ to. If she hadn't become so numb to the whole idea of it, she would have sulked away and cursed herself for being so weak and despicable. But that was the whole point—she was becoming weaker, and frankly, she didn't care anymore.

She spent most of her time sitting behind him while he composed at the piano. A book was always in her hand, but she wasn't always reading. When her eyes grew tired, she would let them wander around the room, and somehow, they would always find their way to the back of Erik's form, and she would never notice until he would turn around and look at her. Her eyes would meet his, and then she would look quickly away back to her book.

When he would sigh dejectedly, she tried not to feel anything.

She was looking at him, wondering at the strange man she had married. Why was it that she wasn't angry with him, even though she was so bored? Why was it that he asked for so little, when on the night of their wedding, he had seemed to be asking for so much? Why was he consuming so much of her thoughts? He seemed to be the only one she ever thought of these days, which made her want to cling to the memory of her former life and her former lover all the more. But, for some reason, time had dulled those impulses.

Sighing, she set aside her book and rubbed at the headache pricking at her eyes. She was about to die from the sheer boredom of being there.

"Erik, I need something to do."

He looked at her for a moment, then rose to the bookshelf to get her another book. She looked at it. For some reason, she felt as though she had looked at that leather binding one too many times.

She shook her head and gave it back to him. "No."

He took the book back and looked at the many titles. "Maybe you would enjoy some Hugo," he said conversationally, "or perhaps he would be too depressing for you. Perhaps Dumas' works would be to your liking?"

"No, Erik. I'll only get a headache if I can only read all day. Besides, I've already read all of that! I need something to do with my hands. You know, feel productive."

Erik considered her for a moment. "I'll get you something," he said slowly.

She thought nothing of it until the next morning when she walked into the kitchen for breakfast. The usually spotless and immaculate kitchen was not spotless or immaculate today. True, it wasn't a total wreck, but the fact that the counters weren't gleaming and that the sink was filled with dishes took her slightly by surprise.

All through breakfast, she half-expected Erik to walk in and clean up the mess, while at the same time, glanced furtively at the piled dishes as though they would suddenly leap up and scare her. She had never seen a mess larger than a petal of a flower beneath a bouquet of them, or a mite of dust floating in the air. It was strange and altogether unnerving. Nevertheless, no matter how hard or how long she stared at them, the dishes did not pick themselves up and disappear without a trace, nor did Erik show himself, and the longer it stayed this way, the more she began to realize that something needed to be done about those dirty dishes.

As she consumed her last bite of jam and toast, she suddenly realized what was being done.

"Oh, Erik," she sighed, smiling ruefully to herself.

So she picked up the dishes and began cleaning, almost humming in contentment.

At dinnertime, she rushed through her meal, practically shoving the food into her mouth just so that she could clean the dishes. As Erik was leaving her, she thought she was mistaken, but there was a breathy echo of someone's laughter ringing in her ears. Halfway through her duty, she finally realized how ridiculous she was with her excitement to do such a mundane chore as cleaning dishes.

She fought back her own smile.

The next day, as she was sitting down into her accustomed seat in the drawing room, she noticed a pile of cloth and a mess of thread sitting on the table across from her. It was a colorful mess, and she recognized a crocheting hook sitting next to the pile.

"Erik?"

There was embroidery. Knitting needles.

She heard him reply in the next room. "Yes?"

There was huck toweling and monks' cloth, and when she recognized them, the smell of cinnamon, strands of brown hair, and a warm, loving smile tugged at the edges of a long-forgotten memory. The woman had brown eyes—so different from Christine, and yet… she recognized her.

Mother.

"What are these?" she asked faintly.

Erik's shadow appeared in the doorway. "Oh, that? That is nothing. I could take them away if you wish." He had already started moving to take them away.

"No, no, no!" she cried, waving his hands away and placing herself protectively over her discovered pile of precious treasures.

Erik shrugged and turned to the piano. "If you insist."

Christine picked up the monks cloth and huck toweling that she knew was for the unique and simple art of Swedish weaving. She fingered it pensively, then murmured to herself. "Mother loved making these…"

Erik glanced up at the tenderness in her voice. "Valérius?" he questioned.

Her cheeks stained red when she realized she said that out loud. "No," she said softly as she turned away from him, and Erik let the matter drop. If his Christine did not wish to speak of it, then so be it. But he held on to that one precious piece of information.

Christine's mother loved Swedish weaving.

All morning and all afternoon, Christine poured over the crafts that Erik had no doubt fetched for her. She was so engrossed in her activities, she hardly noticed when Erik would stop moving his fingers over the keys to turn and stare unabashed at her. At one point, she pricked herself with her needle. As she gasped at the unexpected pain of it, she suddenly heard a horrible crashing noise across the room.

She glanced over to see what was the cause of the racket, and she saw Erik halfway across the room, his piano bench overturned behind him, and she almost laughed at the panicked concern in his eyes. He balked when he saw her eyes crinkle with humor.

"Erik, it's fine. I'm just a little clumsy with the needle, is all."

He stood there, looking torn between taking his seat again or going to care for his wife's very minor wound. Finally, he decided on the latter, but she waved him away.

"Please, Erik. Truly, I'm fine. It's just a little prick. I'm sure you've seen worse."

It was true—he had seen worse. Much, much worse. But, still, he was surprised that she would mention it. It did not seem like something Christine would broach upon. Finally, after several more times of trying to care for her, he went off like a wounded puppy, embarrassed at his behavior. He would have much rather taken care of her instead of pretending to compose, but she was insistent on it. She was convinced that it would stop bleeding in a couple of minutes. So Erik returned to tinkering on the piano, hardly paying much attention to anything but her.

And she didn't even notice.

He couldn't help but feel a little sad that she wouldn't look at him. At least, with the books, she would look up at him occasionally, and not with that mad curiosity that she had the first time when she looked at him. But now that she had her little embroidery, he could have been all the way to India and back, and she would not have noticed.

By dinnertime, he was so drowned with his jealousy that he was convinced he should take them away from her, just so that she would look at him, at least occasionally. So irritated was he, that he did not even realize that he was cleaning the dishes until Christine practically yanked them out of his hands.

Instead of feeling humored as he had last night and the night before, his frustration festered like an irritated wound and he stalked to the doorway. Then, he turned and glared at her until she was finished. Imagine being upstaged by mere chores!

She walked past him, giving him a small, shy smile, and he did not even notice because of his inner turmoil. But when she reached the door to her room, she turned and offered a goodnight to him.

"Thank you for the gifts," she added.

He was frozen to the spot for many minutes, his mind screeching to a halt, backtracking, and wondering what in the world had just happened, even long after Christine had closed the door. He realized two things.

First of all, she had wished him a good night.

Second, Christine had _never_ said thank you for his gifts. Ever.

Perhaps he would not take away her little treasures after all.

That night, while he watched over her, he did not sit in his chair as the passive observer. He reached over and held her hand, when she could not possibly know that she held hands with a monster. Perhaps it was his overactive imagination, but he thought he could feel her hands squeeze trustingly around his own.

And all he could do was wish for better things, for the love he would never have from her.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Erik was on his way to his house, to his sweet little wife when he noticed the small package wrapped in brown paper with a letter on the top addressed to Christine. Erik sneered, recognizing the handwriting as Raoul's. He gathered the bundle in his arms and opened the letter. Usually he would not do such a thing if she ever did get a letter, which she never did, but this was from Raoul, and he did not trust the boy.

He was surprised that it would have taken the imbecile to take this long to send a letter to Erik's wife. At first, he thought that the boy would send ridiculous letters every day, begging or demanding for his dear, sweet "fiancée's" release, but the letters never came. That fact didn't bother him, but he was sure that if he told Christine, it would upset her very much. But now, suddenly, out of the clear blue, there was a letter from the foolish boy, and Erik felt very suspicious. He opened the letter and began to read:

_Monster,_

_Yes, I am quite aware that you would read this letter addressed to my dear Christine, but I implore you to let Christine have the package. It is from Mme. Valérius, and she is quite anxious as to the welfare of her fostered daughter. I have been unable to tell her the truth, as her health is declining, but right at this moment, Mme. Valérius believes that Christine is in Italy to improve upon her voice. She sent me this package to forward to Christine, and I know that you have her, monster. I know that you are still alive. Christine would not have left of her own volition._

_Comte de Chagny_

The letter was quickly crushed in Erik's tight fist the moment he finished reading the boy's despicable words. His wife need not know that her former lover wrote about her. She need not know that the boy was making an effort to play at the caring soul for her right at that very instant – caring for her safety, concern for her company (or the so-called "monster"), and his consideration for Christine's surrogate mother, something Erik had not thought about since his wife returned to him.

No, she need not know about him. If she found out, she would have hope that she might leave her underground home, and if she left, Erik would die.

He considered throwing the package away, but then he remembered that if Christine did not hear about the boy, yet she got a package from Mme. Valérius, then she would think that Erik had received it from the old woman during one of his aboveground excursions.

With this thought in mind, Erik made his way swiftly through the cellars, eager to see Christine receive the package. He wanted to see her face when she opened the package, wanted to see her light up with joy for his consideration to bring the gift to her. Of course, he would have checked the package before he gave it to her, just in case the boy had thought to fool him in order to get a secret message to her without his knowing, but he would be careful in opening it, and then he would reseal it with just as much care in opening it.

As he unwrapped the box, he was puzzled by its contents. The items were worn and old – hardly something he would have ever offered to his darling Christine. Perhaps they offered her some sort of message from the boy? He shook his head firmly – the boy was far too simple-minded for that. However, just in case, he would be watching his Christine especially carefully as she took them into her possession.

The last item was a letter. It had Christine's name scripted across the envelope, but it was not in the boy's handwriting. He did not recognize it, but perhaps the boy was telling the truth? Perhaps it really was from Mme. Valérius.

He rewrapped it meticulously, just the way he found it, and brought it out to Christine.

She was in the kitchen making dinner like the good wife she was. Recently, she had been taking up cooking, which really wasn't much. He had tried to help her the first time he found her alone in the kitchen, but she had only waved him out and all but barred the kitchen from him. Dinners were a ghastly affair, nowadays. More often than not, he had to prepare himself something behind her back so that he wouldn't have to hurt feelings. He wondered, though, at how she could possibly eat her horrid cooking.

Christine turned around and noticed a shadow from the corner of her eye. She gasped in surprise and fire rose to her cheeks.

"Hello, Erik," she said softly.

She could never seem to get over how quiet Erik could let himself be, but she could feel herself gradually getting used to him stalking up behind her and taking her by surprise. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought that his favorite pastime was in startling her.

He cleared his throat delicately. "I have something for you, Christine, a package."

"Erik," she sighed sadly. "You already give me so much, and I have nothing to give you in return."

"Do you not like my gifts?"

She looked up at him surprised. "No, it's not that. It's just… well, if it makes you happy… but I don't have anything to give you."

"I just want to see you happy."

She bit her lip and looked away again. If only he would not say such things. She truly was trying to be happy for his sake, but it was just too hard. Although she had everything she could ever need here, she missed everyone from up above, missed talking to people and seeing people. She missed the sunshine on her face; missed the birds singing in the trees; missed the stars at night; missed the fresh breeze and the green trees. Frankly, she missed everything.

"It's not from me, anyways," he said.

That made her turn around once more. "Oh?" she said. Who would send her something? Surely not something from Raoul—Erik would have destroyed it immediately. She had no other friends to speak of, though, that would send her any word of greeting.

"From Mme. Valérius."

She had never moved so quickly in her life. At one moment, she was at one side of the room, and the next, she had flown right up to him. Erik had to step back in surprise; he had never expected to invoke this kind of reaction from her. He looked down at her, slightly amused at her feverishly excited eyes.

"Oh, Erik! Can I have it? Did she write to me? Did she really write to me?" she rushed. It wasn't that she thought that Mama had forgotten her. She had assumed that she had been too sick or ill to write, but it would have been wonderful to get something from her.

He handed it to her, and her pretty features lit up to such an extent, Erik wondered briefly if she would light on fire. She snatched it out of his hands and tore the paper off of the package. What fell into her hands after that made her gasp.

"Oh, Mamma," she sighed softly, tears pricking at her eyes.

Curiously, Erik watched for her reactions. All she held was a tattered shawl, a sapphire pendant situated in tarnished silver – the chain, he supposed, was long gone – and an ancient gold pocket watch. Her tears made him even more puzzled, and he wondered if it were such a good idea to have given them to her. Perchance they were a secret message after all?

A little voice inside of him told him that he was jealous that, even after all of his extravagant gifts, three old, battered items could draw more emotion from her than all of his gifts put together.

As the silence stretched on, he shifted his feet nervously, wondering if he should say something or just leave. She looked up at him, her eyes bright and shining, and looked as though she desperately wanted to tell him something. She even opened her mouth to force the words out, but her breath only caught in her throat and she gave a choked sob. Without thinking twice about it, she threw her arms around Erik's waist and began sobbing into his chest. He was taken slightly aback at her embrace, and it took him a moment to realize that her arms really _were_ around him. Slowly, afraid that she would pull away, he gently took her up into his arms and held her closer. When she still didn't pull away, he even dared to touch her hair.

"Thank you, Erik," she whispered. "They mean the world to me…"

He wanted to ask her why, but she drew her arms away from him, rubbing at her face as she did so.

She picked up the letter and broke open the seal, but before she could begin reading, he raised his voice timidly.

"Christine?"

She looked up.

"What do these gifts mean to you?"

She smiled, albeit sadly.

"They were Daddy's things. I left them at Mamma's house before…" She trailed of and didn't bother finishing the sentence.

He looked at the tattered shawl and the sapphire pendant and decided immediately that her father never would have worn those. He decided that they actually belonged to Christine's mother, and her father had kept them as keepsakes.

"He gave them to me before he died. He told me to guard them carefully. I had forgotten about them…" A furrow appeared between her eyebrows, and he could only imagine that she was feeling more than a little guilty for having put her father's things out of her mind.

"I'm sorry," she said, turning away. "I should be cooking dinner."

She began to walk away from him, but he grabbed her arm, seizing his opportunity for making her a decent meal for once. Besides, he didn't know if he could bear to swallow one more rubbery noodle or piece of overcooked meat. "No, Christine. I'll finish it for you. You read your letter." He guided her to a chair and forced her to sit, which she did so gratefully.

As Erik began dinner, Christine opened the letter and unfolded it eagerly. Another piece of paper fell out of the envelope, and she glanced at it. She stifled her gasp when she recognized Raoul's handwriting, and she stuffed the piece of paper into her pocket to read later. She cleared her throat, hoping that Erik did not see the letter she had hid from him hastily from him, and read the first line of her mamma's letter.

_My dear Christine_

_Much has changed since I last saw you. I hope you are doing well, and that you enjoy the package I sent you. I can't tell you how surprised I was to see your father's things in your room. You could hardly let go of them in the entire time you were here. Oh, Christine. You have no idea how much I've missed seeing your face. I miss hearing you tell me your father's stories. They were so very charming, you know._

_I am doing quite well. The house is so quiet without you. I am enjoying pleasant weather—so much easier on my old bones, though I still find that it is harder to get around. I so dearly wish that you could have come to see me before you left for Italy—_

Christine stopped and reread the sentence, wondering why Mama thought she went to Italy. She looked up at Erik, who was staring at her intently. "She thinks I'm in Italy?" she asked, bemused. He shrugged his shoulders, so she continued reading.

…_Before you left for Italy, but I understand that you were in a rush. Your sweet boy Raoul tells me that he misses you, but is happy that you are singing again._

She stopped again and she stared at the letter in horror. Erik wondered what could have possibly read that would have put her in this state of mind.

"He told her that I went to Italy? Why Italy? Why wouldn't he tell her that I'm with you? He knows that she loves the Angel of Music, no matter that he is a man."

"Who, dear?" he asked, though he felt he knew already.

She fumbled for a few seconds. "Well, um, Mamma has been seeing – er – the vicomte, and he had told her that I left for Italy. Why would he lie about that?"

"Perhaps he does not wish to worry her?" he asked through gritted teeth.

She laughed humorously. "She was more worried for me when I was with _him_ than when she knew I was with you. She's probably sick with worry right at this moment."

With that, her eyes flew back to the letter and skimmed through the rest of it. "She is quite worried, afraid that I am alone and defenseless. She wonders if the Angel still sings for me." Even through her distress, Christine had to smile affectionately at that. "She wonders when I'll be returning, as she believes that she won't… she won't…" She looked at the paper with a new kind of horror, and Erik briefly wondered if someone had died. "Oh! God!" she whispered, staring at the piece of paper as if it had come alive.

Dinner was completely forgotten now. Erik made his way over to Christine and touched her shoulder gently, comfortingly, but she flinched away and ran out of the room. A few seconds later, her door slammed, leaving Erik alone. For a few seconds, there was no sound, but then he heard a small sound, like a child crying in bed. Concerned, he picked up the letter and began reading through it. There was nothing that seemed to be out of the ordinary. It was mostly affectionate small talk, something he never really cared for. He continued reading, though, until he came to the very end:

"_When will you come to see me, my dear? You must come soon; else you won't see me again in this life. The doctor came by last week and told me that I have only a little while left to live…_"

He was at Christine's door before he could even think about it. He knocked and called out to her. "Do you wish to talk about it, my dear?"

When she did not answer, he called out again; "Please let me in, dear. You know how I hate it when you are so upset."

She did not respond, and after five minutes, Erik finally left her alone.

Inside her room, Christine sighed with relief and pulled Raoul's letter out of her pocket. She clutched the letter to her bosom and sobbed uncontrollably. She couldn't bear the thought of her mamma dying! No, she doubted that her heart could bear it. Her father had died barely three years ago, yet the wounds still felt as fresh as if he had died yesterday. She couldn't remember her mother very well. She had died during Christine's sixth year. All that seemed to stand out in her mind concerning her death was that of a happy, smiling, beautiful woman to a cold and silent body on the bed. Christine had been the one to find her, though she little realized her mother's death at the time. For the years that followed, she had been forced to watch her father waste away until there was hardly anything left of him… and then he was gone. She knew that he would go soon, but she had expected him to stay with her until she grew up.

Fate had a different idea. Death took her father and left her alone.

And now it was taking her mamma.

She wished that Erik would at least allow her to see Mamma before she died. Surely he wouldn't be so cruel as to let her Mamma die without her having seen her first!

She cried for a few hours, waiting for her tears to dry up. She crawled into her bed and hugged herself, trying to forget everything. There was only one thought echoing through her head, and no matter what Christine did, the words bounced around in her mind, beating itself rhythmically into her conscience: _Mamma's dying, Mamma's dying, Mamma's dying, Mamma's dying…_

She wanted to grip her head and tear her hair out, but she knew that such behavior would not help. It did not help her after her father had died. Nothing had helped her back then; she had died with him. But this was different. With her father, she had felt immense emptiness. Now she felt enormous grief and regret—regret for not staying with Mamma when she had begged her to; regret that she did not show her love or patience for Mamma after Erik revealed himself to her; regret that she didn't go see Mamma before she descended into Erik's lairs.

_Mamma's dying, Mamma's dying, Mamma's dying, Mamma's dying…_

Christine covered her head in a pillow and thought firmly to herself, _No she _mustn't _die! Dear God, please, she mustn't die…_

_She mustn't die…_


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: Hello, my little chickpeas! Thought I'd treat you all to another chapter (and so far, I think this one's my favorite - fluff, angst, tempers running amuck... everything! ... Well, not QUITE everything, if you get my meaning). And before we get started, I'd just like to say something. Gosh, it makes me embarrassed, I hate to be such a stickler for these sorts of things, but last chapter (chapter 12), there were 2 reviewers (which is great! Don't get me wrong). It's just that there were so many readers - 907 hits and 260 visitors for the story in these last couple of days, 106 hits and 97 visitors for chapter 12 alone. **I KNOW YOU'RE OUT THERE...** Really, it doesn't take much; just drop a review and tell me how I'm doing, because otherwise, with so many hits and very little reviews, I worry that I'm not doing a good enough job!

-gets off soapbox-

Really, I'm sorry that I had to bring that up, but my pay for this story is very low (which means, none!) Of course, it's fanfiction, and I know you all may be busy, but just a sentence or too, heck, even just two words would be awesome!

-ahem- ONWARDS!

* * *

Chapter 13

She didn't slip back into that horrible depression, much to Erik's relief. Rather, it was quite the opposite. She seemed to be more aware of him. Every time he started to walk out the door, even when he thought that she was not watching, she cried out and begged him not to leave. He did not understand her sudden change of behavior, but if Christine wanted him to stay, then he would stay.

The first time it happened, he was taken completely by surprise. He was about to open the door and leave when suddenly, out of nowhere, Christine was tugging on his hand.

He raised an eyebrow.

"Yes?"

Christine realized how forward she was, so she dropped her hands and lowered her flushing face.

"I was just wondering," she said shyly. "Where are you going?"

His lips twitched. She never asked this, and he couldn't deny that he liked it very much, even if he couldn't tell her where he was really off to.

"I'm just going to go run a few errands," he said. It wasn't so far from the truth, he decided.

"Could it wait?" she asked.

He was taken slightly aback when she said that. He had thought that after Mme. Valérius' letter, she would pull back into her little shell and become dead to him again.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

She shuffled on her feet and flushed a deeper red. "I… well, uh. I just wanted to see if… I was wondering if you could, um… if you would… well… I didn't want to be, um…" She glanced up at him despairingly, and was immediately lost in his deep and penetrating eyes. She couldn't speak a word.

Erik was charmed, as well as intrigued. His Christine was never at loss for words, and here she was, stumbling for a few simple words.

As the silence stretched on, she turned away and murmured a soft, "Never mind," and began to walk away forlorn. He placed his hand on her shoulder and turned her back around to face him. He wasn't about to let her go when he was insanely curious about what she had wanted to say to him.

"What is it you are trying to say, my dear?" he asked softly and gently.

Her eyes were wide, and she sucked in a breath. She held it for a few seconds, then let it out. "I just want you to stay with me," she blurted

He grinned. "Of course, my dear."

The only reason he ever left to go on his errands was because he did not think that she ever enjoyed his company. If it were up to him, he would be by her side, day and night, just to be with her. It was for her benefit that he left for several hours of every day.

She melted with relief when he told her he would stay. Erik didn't quite understand why she should be; it seemed that his company shouldn't be all that desirable. Nevertheless, she took him by the hand and led him back into the library. She picked up a book that she had been reading and sat down. After some hesitation, he sat down next to her, expecting her to ask him to sit somewhere else.

She did not protest. Instead, she turned to him and handed him the book, which he took. He read the title, and his eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"_Don Juan_?"

She blushed shyly at his reaction. "I thought his life was a tragic story, not a comedy. I don't understand why it was written that way."

"How do you know English, my dear?" he asked, completely ignoring her question.

She sputtered for a moment, having not expected him to ask that. "My mother was from London, and my father was adamant that I learn," she said, but would say nothing else on the matter, despite all of the questions that he posed to her. It eluded his understanding why she would try to hide this one fact from him. He could have taught her so much aside from French philosophy! He could have had her read Coleridge, Wordsworth, or Paine. Her understanding English opened up a whole realm of literature and knowledge that was not available to those who knew only French.

Eventually, he got up and pulled a book from the top of his bookshelf. He walked back to her and handed it to her.

And that was how they passed their mornings. Each day, he would try to leave, mostly to have Christine stop him from leaving. It always left him on a giddy high when she grabbed his hand to lead him back to the library. Then she would ask him what he wanted her to read, and they would read together off of the same book. Sometimes, he would even read to her, and she would work on one of her many crafts, or lean her head on his chest and let his rolling voice wash over her.

She still would not sing for him. He had tried to offer lessons again, but she refused to sing. So he played for her. He never played the one song he had composed for her for fear that she would throw herself into that terrible temper again. Instead, he played other music for her; music that couldn't possibly express the love he felt for her.

She still had her restless dreams. Erik knew this because he still slept in the fluffy armchair beside her bed. Her dreams always occurred an hour before she woke, and her helpless cries while she dreamed woke him up. She didn't cry out for Raoul as often as she did before, much to Erik's relief. She called out for her father more often than not, now, and sometimes, she would even call out for her angel.

They spent their days in almost perfect harmony, but there was always something that seemed to be missing. Erik had not noticed it at first, but everyday when he tried to leave, Christine would run to him and pull him away from the door, but it didn't seem that she actually wanted him with her. She had an animalistic fear in her eyes that would not dissipate unless he acquiesced to her pleas to stay with her. He wasn't quite sure what she would do to herself if he left.

But one day he had no choice, for that was the day they ran out of food.

* * *

Christine's eyes snapped open, and she felt a horrible foreboding resting heavily upon her heart. Her first thought was that of Erik, and if he had already left for that morning. Her second was of the paper that was resting near her head with Erik's clumsy, scrawled handwriting scripted all across it. Nervously, she picked it up with a trembling hand and read it to herself.

_My dear. You need not concern yourself about my whereabouts. I have only gone out to get some food, and I will be back around noon._

Without undressing, Christine threw a dress over her nightgown and rushed to the door. He may not be returning at all, she thought to herself, and she was not going to wait helplessly at his house, biting her fingernails and glancing at the clock every few minutes. This time, she was going to go out and brave the dark, for her dear angel very well might be dying in it…

* * *

Raoul arrived at the Opera House quite a bit later than he usually was, and it was already thirty minutes to noon. He knew the entrance to the monster's lair, but he dared not enter it. He had no desire to repeat what had happened last time. No, he would wait until the monster came out on his own, and he would shoot the creature unawares.

He had waited by the lake for over a week, and he had seen no sign of him. Either the monster was sneakier than he supposed, or he had locked himself up with Christine, never to come out again. The thought chilled him to the bone, and he shoved it out of his mind. He had a very good feeling about today. Hopefully he was not too late to catch the monster now. Once the creature was properly taken care of, he would go into the house on the lake and fetch Christine out of her horrible nightmare.

The trek down to the lake was becoming all too familiar, and Raoul hoped that today would be the day, for he did not want to remain in these dungeons longer than he had to. He doused the flame of his lamp the moment he retreated into his normal hiding place. He did not need the light to see the monster, as his eyes glowed in the dark. Besides, the light would be his worst enemy in this case; it would give him away even before he could know if the Phantom was there.

But just as he settled into the dark, he heard a small gasp that sounded all too feminine to be the Phantom. It could only be one other person…

"Christine?"

* * *

It was dark. Frightening. Oppressive. So dark that Christine could not see her hand right in front of her face.

But she hardly noticed. Her eyes were straining against the dark, looking for two glowing orbs of light that would unmistakably be Erik, or for a lantern off in the distance, which would be, of course, her dear Raoul. Her heart leapt, knowing that she might be very close to her dear friend, but sank at the same time, because she knew that same man would potentially kill Erik.

She did not know why she was concerned as to the fate of her masked husband. She didn't even love him, for heaven's sakes! So why did her stomach feel like a tight, worried knot?

Perhaps it was because she just couldn't live without him, anymore, she thought wryly to herself, and she half chuckled at it. It was something Erik had said to her on a number of occasions, which is why it came to her mind easily enough; however, something in that thought made her pause and mull over it. There was a ring of truth to it; she could no longer imagine life without Erik in it, and she could no longer imagine taking up the life she had before she had met him, nor could she honestly say that she wanted that life again.

Nevertheless, Christine tried not to think too hard upon it for fear of some truth that would make itself manifest if she did – something like love. How could love for that man be possible? Erik had forced her to give up her freedom, whether intentionally or not. She should have been eager that Raoul was coming to kill him and take her away. After all, it was Raoul she had wanted to marry—Raoul whom she fell in love with. Erik had torn them apart and had nearly killed them all in the process.

Yet she could not deny the dread she felt when she read Raoul's letter. She could no longer imagine what life would be like without Erik, and having Raoul take his life, no matter how despicable that life was, was horror beyond her imagination. Erik had been so kind and gentle ever since she left the world above to remain with him. He nursed her back to health and had brought her back from that awful void she had been living in for those terrible weeks. He sang to her when she was in need of comfort, and that comfort had been helping her nightmares. True, they were not gone, but they were not as horrible as they once were. And sometimes she would wake up in the middle of the night to see him slumbering in the chair next to her bed. That was also comforting now – it wasn't at first, but she had grown used to it, and now she could not imagine going to sleep without knowing that Erik would be beside her when she eventually slipped into the world of dreams.

What would happen, then, if Erik was dead?

Gripped with sudden fear, she called out Erik's name and started to run forward, but her foot felt nothing but air and she plunged forward into the darkness. She scratched uselessly at the air, trying to grab at nothing, and her stomach sunk to the bottom of her feet. She was falling, and she had no idea how far she would fall…

And then something caught her.

It pulled her up out of middle of her fall and brought her close to a thin, cold body. The thing was still wrapped around her, and she realized, looking up into two yellow orbs, that it was Erik's arm. Drowning with relief, she clung to Erik and sobbed uncontrollably, not noticing how fiery and angry his eyes were.

"Oh, Erik," she sighed. "I thought you might have been dead! I thought he might have gotten to you before I could find you! I was so, so very frightened…"

Erik was utterly bemused, but he pushed it aside from his mind. "Christine should not have been wandering about in the dark without her guide," he said quietly, yet his voice was laced with danger. "Especially with all of my lovely traps. I must take you home right now and make sure that you never leave again."

Christine shivered but did not respond. When Erik released her, she refused to let go. Instead, they walked awkwardly with her arms wrapped tightly around his waist. Erik was finding it quite difficult to concentrate on his anger, and he draped his arm over her trembling shoulders. He even went so far as to murmur complacently into her ear, trying to calm her frazzled nerves, taking advantage of the fact that she was looking up ever so trustingly into his eyes.

He heard a sudden noise, and he froze. Christine was not paying attention – she stopped walking only because Erik refused to take another step. It took her a few moments to register that Erik looked incredibly angry, and that he was looking off into the darkness. She followed his gaze almost hesitantly, and at first she did not see anything. Then she noticed it—Raoul.

He was putting out his lamp and looking like he was going to be waiting for a while. Christine tried to stay silent, but she could not help but gasp at his sudden apparition. She feared for his life.

No, she feared for Erik's.

She feared for both of them.

She grabbed Erik's hand to drag him away before Raoul could notice his yellow eyes glowing in the dark, but she was too late.

"Christine?" she heard the boy say.

It took all of her strength to keep Erik from flying at him in rage. With every ounce of energy she could muster, she tried to pull him away from the lake, back into the dark, safe halls in which she knew that Raoul knew nothing about. Maybe there, she could successfully talk some sense into Erik's head and convince him to take them a different way back to the house.

It was a battle of wills. Erik realized that something was holding him back, so he looked behind him to see Christine grasping his arm as if for dear life. His eyes burned fiercely down at her, silently ordering her to let go, but she did not. She glared rebelliously back at him, trying to get him to follow her into the labyrinth.

"Christine, are you there?"

Raoul's voice was maddeningly frustrating to Erik, but it only hardened Christine's resolve. He tried to go to the boy, but she only jerked on his arm and gave him a firm shake of her head. Her eyes implored him to follow her.

"I've come to take you away from here, Christine. I don't think that monster is here right now, so you don't have to worry."

Christine had to dig her heels into the floor to keep Erik from flying at the poor, unsuspecting boy. She _had _to get Erik away, and quick!

"Erik," she breathed, but she knew he could hear her. His head whipped around to face her. "Let's get away from here. Please."

His eyes softened somewhat when he heard the sincerity in her voice, but she could still tell that he was seething. Nevertheless, it was enough. He scooped her up in his arms and fled into the dark tunnels that only he knew. Christine quickly lost track of how many turns he took within the first minute of his ghostly strides, and she could feel the cool air blowing around her due to the speed he seemed to be walking. She had never known that anyone could ever walk this fast.

Within minutes, Erik dropped into the house, opened a door, and walked into her room. He tossed her unceremoniously onto the bed and paced angrily around the room.

Christine was disbelieving. She fought with Erik and she won. _She won! _ She could hardly believe her good fortune in that. She saved both her friend and her dear angel that, she confessed only to herself, she cared for very much. Breathless with another wave of relief, she watched the caged tiger pace back and forth, never glancing at her. She was suddenly afraid to interrupt him; she had stopped a storm back with Raoul, but now she knew that if she did or say anything wrong now, an entire hurricane would be unleashed on her.

Briefly, she wondered if she should have shown him the letter Raoul had sent to her, thinking that perhaps she could explain her actions that day if he could only see why she had left.

As carefully and as quietly as she could, she climbed off of the bed and crept to her bureau, pulled out the bottom drawer. Suddenly, unexpectedly, she heard Erik whisper dangerously,

"What are you doing?"

The next thing she knew, she was on her back, staring up into his masked face. She could not quell the terror that welled up in her throat, but she dared not cry out. All of his sharp bones were pressing into her flesh, and it hurt her more than she cared to tell. His fingers gripped her arms so tightly; she knew that there would be bruises in the morning.

"Please, Erik," she whimpered, but he quickly interrupted her.

"I tell you that I would be back by noon, I even come back early!" he shouted at her, shaking her furiously. "When I walk in, you were no where to be found! I called and called, but you did not answer! I go to look for you, and I find that you are trying to escape, and then I find the _boy! _ How could I have ever trusted you? You are no more than a wicked witch! You were trying to leave your poor Erik!"

"No, Erik!" she cried. "I was trying to look for you—"

He cut her off with a shake that rocked her head violently. "No! I don't want to hear any of your worthless lies! Women like you never change. You all tell lies and insist you were not, but you are all liars!"

It stung her, for some reason. Before, when he got like this, she had only been afraid of his anger and temper, but now the words he said, she actually listened to, and they hurt her, more than if he had slapped her hard across the face.

"Erik, no!" she gasped, her eyes widened.

Erik ignored her and went on in his horrible rant, and Christine closed her eyes, hoping that not seeing his angry eyes would not make the insults that much more painful.

"You were running because of my face, were you not? You were running because your husband, your own dear husband, is built up from head to foot of corpse! Women dream of a man they could love and look upon without fear – even you, my dear! You dream of your dear boy and hope that one day he will come to rescue you! You live in some sort of fantasy that he will whisk you away from here! Well, my dear, you are _mine,_ and you shall not get away so easily! I shall have what is mine, and nothing – _nothing –_ can take what I own away from me!"

She wished he would stop shouting and let her speak. "Erik, please… please stop," she said weakly.

He took her chin in his iron hold, and she felt like her jaw would shatter with the pressure he was exerting.

"Why should I, my dear? You never stop! You never stop to think of the consequences! Do you ever take anything but your own selfish needs into consideration? I always seem to do nothing but make you cry – look at you! You are crying even now! But do you ever wonder how Erik feels?"

She managed to shake her head, trying to dispel the guilt she felt. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she murmured. "I didn't mean to – "

"YOU NEVER MEAN ANYTHING!" he roared, cutting her off. "You never mean to make Erik feel like a fool! You never mean to hurt his feelings, while at the same time, you manage to hurt him all the same by never showing your appreciation to his gifts or his love! You never mean to be unfaithful, do you? You say you will never betray Erik, but at the first chance you get, you run off to you young man! Never mind you are married! Never mind you made promises if you don't intend to keep them! Your husband won't care, would he? After all, he's only a corpse!"

Something inside of him crumpled, and his angry railing suddenly died. He had gotten off of her during his rant, storming around the room and flinging his words into her face. Now he was only a few feet away from her, on his knees with his head in his hands. He looked broken.

When he spoke again, his voice was empty and cold.

"You ache for your boy, don't you? You ache for his handsome looks and his wealth. After all, who could ever love your poor Erik? I am nothing but a repulsive, hideous corpse."

Silence extended painfully. She could not bear to hear it, but she was afraid to break it and Erik seemed to make no effort to break it. His shouting had been painful enough, as was his disappointment in her, and yet the silence, coupled with his broken, silent form before her left her to her thoughts and the guilt.

Finally, after an eternity, she could no longer stand it.

"You don't trust me," she blurted without thinking, and immediately, she flinched at the stupid words. They were uncaring and served no purpose other than to prove him right, and it made her wish that she were another person, even if it were for him. "I mean, when you put it that way, I can completely understand – I wouldn't trust me, either."

_Stop it, Christine!_ she shouted to herself. _Quit your prattling and quit digging this huge hole you've dug yourself in!_

She could feel his stare on her, surprised and disappointed. Her words were dispassionate and stupid, and she wanted to sink through the ground, that it would open up and swallow her whole. She had just made herself into the greatest fool, the greatest, most bumbling idiot ever to walk the planet.

She clutched at her head and wished that she would just disappear. Maybe Erik would kill her now, she thought wryly – he had almost killed her before, had he not? He could save her from this dreadful embarrassment and kill her now.

He didn't. In fact, he didn't bother gracing her ridiculous prattling with an answer, which made her all the more humiliated. In fact, he stood up and looked down at her for a long moment, his eyes cold and disdainful. She felt very much at his mercy under that stare. For a moment, she remembered the time he had first brought her down, when he was kneeling and sniveling before her, and she had been staring down disdainfully at him.

Their roles were absolutely reversed, now, except that she was the greater fool.

He turned and left the room, shutting the door. The silence, as unbearable as it was before, was even more so now because of the words they parted on. What a way to end a conversation like that, she thought bitterly to herself.

In the aftermath, the silence was so absolute that she could hear a high-pitch keening in her ears, and she could do nothing but wait for Erik to let his temper blow over; wait for something – anything – to happen. But after what had just happened, she wasn't sure if she could pull herself out of this mess ever again. All the work and effort she had put through – it all amounted to nothing, now, and it was all her fault.

She hated herself for it. She hated herself for not being stronger, more able to move on and make a greater effort to accept her situation. She was stuck here because of her weakness…

There was nothing left to do but wait; but what she waited for, she did not know, and that was worse than anything that had happened that very day.

* * *

A/N: a review would be nice :)


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

She was dreaming again. She knew this, and yet she could not help but fear. Her father lay before her, shrouded in black mist and hidden from her view. She cried and screamed, hoping he could hear her beyond the veil of darkness, but when he turned around, he could not see her.

"_Daddy! It's me!"_ she sobbed._ "Can you not see me?"_

He said nothing, for he did not hear her. Bizarrely, for a sick, heart-wrenching moment, the familiar figure of her father changed into something darker and nightmarish – a demon cloaked in fire and smoke. She screamed and tried to run, but though she ran hard and fast, she could not move an inch. The horrendous creature bore down on her and enveloped her in darkness and fear. It gripped her with its claws, and as she turned around, the head was suddenly Erik's, his mouth opened wide to swallow her whole –

"_Angel!"_ she cried in one last helpless plea for rescue.

The Erik-demon laughed, and the chuckle rattled in its throat like dry bones.

"_No Angel, no Angel,"_ the creature taunted. _"Your father lied – there is no Angel in heaven for you! No angel! Father lied!"_

Nevertheless, Christine continued to cry for her angel, hoping against hope that it might hear her.

"_Not all angels are from heaven, Christine. Your angel is a demon from hell!"_

The demon's laugh filled her mind, and she could already feel the fires of hell burn upon her skin.

"ERIK!"

The shout woke Christine up.

She started from her sleep, the sheets twisted around her legs in a hopeless mess and most of the bedding slipped off of the bed onto the floor. She was completely covered with a sheen of cold sweat, and she could not stop shaking.

"Just a dream, Christine," she muttered to herself. "It was _just_ a _dream!_"

Nevertheless, caught up in the last vestiges of the nightmare, she couldn't help but feel as though she had narrowly escaped the devil himself. It was not unlike the time she had seen a corpse for the first time… its skin had been turning blue, and the smell of it had made her nauseous – she could never describe the smell – it was like sour meat, only worse, since the horrifying smell was coming from a human. His eyes were no longer there, and there were flies crawling all over him, into his mouth and nostrils…

She had had nightmares for months afterwards.

She looked over to the armchair that was next to her bed, expecting to see the comforting form of Erik's shadow and was more than disappointed that he was not there. She wondered where he could be, but then remembered the night before, and she felt a wave of guilt and shame fill the bottom pit of her stomach so strongly, she felt she might be sick.

Just as she was untangling herself out of the sheets, her door opened and Erik stood just within the doorframe, leaning against it impersonally. She had just pulled the sheets off of her when she noticed him, and she gave a gasp of surprise and yanked the blankets back up to cover her half exposed thighs, as her nightgown had hiked up on her in her fretful sleeping.

"You called, my dear?" Erik asked frostily, as though she had interrupted him from some direly important task. It made her cheeks flush in complete embarrassment that he had come for nothing, after all, that she had been sleeping, and that whatever noise he may have heard from her was her shouts when she woke up.

"I – I'm sorry, Erik," she stammered, suddenly unable to breathe for fear of his temper. "I was not aware that I called out."

He hissed impatiently, and she rushed to explain.

"It was a nightmare! Nothing more – "

But whatever she might have said after that was cut off as he spun around and slammed the door unceremoniously. His coldness made her eyes sting with the onslaught of tears, but she bit her lip hard and willed them not to spill over.

"Well, you didn't have to come 'comfort' me if you were still so angry," she quipped to herself. However, though she tried to be sarcastic and bitter about it, a lump formed in her throat as she wished that Erik would have come in to comfort her, or sing her back to sleep. She hadn't had a nightmare like that for weeks, now, and bearing the burden of it alone made her feel absolutely abandoned.

She tried to swallow the lump back down, but it continued to rise up to the surface. She put her fist in her mouth to muffle a sob, but the sound of it made her break down completely that she turned and buried her head into the soft down pillows. Her grief echoed in the empty room, despite her efforts to quell it, and it magnified her misery. She felt desperate to feel the mattress sink down next to her, to hear Erik shush her into silence, to feel his cool hand brush against her sticky and hot forehead, to push away the hair that was getting in her face…

She turned her head to surface for a fresh breath of air, feeling suffocated by the warm pillow, only to feel more miserable to see that Erik had not suddenly appeared at her side to comfort her in her grief, and then she felt selfish for expecting this of him.

"Why, Erik?" she half whispered, half sobbed. "Why must you do this to me?"

Her question hung unanswered and unheard in the air, and for some reason, the feeling of being ignored made her angry and frustrated.

"Why did you have to choose _me_? A grieving _girl_ who was no closer to womanhood than a mere five-year-old innocent? Why did you have to confuse me, lie to me? Cheat me of my own life, when I could have perfectly managed on my own? Why did you have to notice _my_ voice and not some other girl? Had I never improved, Raoul would have never noticed me, never would have interfered, and I would never had made any of those _stupid_ mistakes that got me into this huge mess, and I had to marry _you_, and _you _made me honor bound to come back and guilted me into staying, and now you can't even _trust _me to make an honest decision, or even a decent _mistake_, and _I'm still too foolish to grow from those childish dreams, and it's ALL YOUR FAULT!_"

All through her rant, her voice had risen to such impressive volume that she wondered that the door had not opened to show Erik in a fury as incredible as a god's. As she screamed the last word, she threw a vase at the door for good measure and fell back on the bed, sobbing long and hard.

"I'm sorry," she murmured. "I'm sorry I'm so weak and not strong enough to take on a marriage like this. I'm sorry I'm not honest, even if you were in no danger of losing me. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the letter, and I'm sorry I couldn't tell you how bad I really feel about all this, and I'm just so, _so _sorry that I can't grow out of my childish fears and show you how much I really care about you, and maybe ever perhaps grow to lo – to like you, and I'm so sorry that I can't just bring up the courage to tell this all to your face!"

She fell silent, exhausted from her ordeal, and lay there for a long time, hiccoughing occasionally and taking several shuddering breaths. She halfway hoped that he might have listened to her at the door, but at the same time, hoped to God that he did not hear one fragment of a word of her embarrassing tirade. No doubt it would have only made him angrier to have heard it, and she did not wish to be on the receiving end of his temper any longer.

Her exhaustion gave way to a deep and dreamless sleep, and when she opened her eyes again, she saw Erik sitting in the armchair next to her, and for a brief moment, in that confusion between sleep and wakefulness, she wondered if the whole thing was a dream, before she remembered the bruises on her arms and the soreness in her jaw from where he gripped her. She lay there, wide-eyed, speculating as to what he was doing there. His posture was too stiff to be contrite, and his aura gave off too much anger to give her reason that anything might have changed since last night.

Finally, she dared to speak.

"Erik," she started, but he held up a hand to cut her off, and to her horror, she saw a paper clenched tightly in his fist.

The letter.

Hours before, she decided that she would never show him the letter Raoul wrote to her. If she gave the letter to Erik to read, he would run out to kill the poor, devoted boy, and at the same time, Raoul would kill her husband at any cost. She didn't know much about fighting, but she knew that in any sort of situation, if Erik perhaps let his emotions carry him away too far, he could easily make a mistake and let Raoul take advantage of him. It happened, whether in duels or word sparring, so she determined never to tell and hoped that his temper would eventually blow over on its own.

However, it did not matter. He had found it anyways.

"Do not speak, for if you speak, Erik will go mad, and he will wring your pretty little neck," he said, his voice calm and collected. _Too_ calm, which made her very nervous. He was beyond mere anger – he was furious.

She did not dare to move, and petrified as she was, even found it difficult to breathe. She did not imagine this. Perhaps she imagined that, once he saw everything (which he did not, she reminded herself, since he would not let her speak), he would see into her mind and understand that this whole thing was a gross misunderstanding.

"My wife needs to be punished. She has been writing letters to a lover, and not her husband. What do they call it these days?" he asked, fully not expecting an answer; merely dragging it out painfully. "I believe they call it… adultery? Yes, yes, that must be it; in which a wife is unfaithful to her husband, promising herself to one when she clearly belongs to another. Or perhaps that is not so – perhaps you realized that no man owns you completely yet, as the marriage was not yet consummated, was it, my dear?"

Her heart stopped in her throat. "Erik," she breathed, but he did not hear.

"Yes, I own your mind and soul, but not your body."

_No! no! This mustn't be happening!_

"You are my wife, and it is well within my rights to claim you, isn't it?"

_Not like this! Please, God, _not like this_!_

He stood up and paced over to the side of her bed. In fear and surprise, she scrambled away from him, trying to yank her nightgown to completely cover her bosom and half-exposed legs. He hissed at her and his eyes flashed dangerously, and before she could pull away further, he reached out and took her wrists firmly. His grip made her wince in pain, and he forced her to crawl to the edge of the bed, next to him. He tied her hands to the bedpost so tightly that, as he pulled the knot, she cried out. The rope was not completely necessary, as she would not have dared to resist him, but being tied up made her feel like he was treating her like an animal, and it hurt to feel treated in this way. It gave her greater insight into his poor childhood.

He had her laid out on her back, and as his hands descended on her, she screwed her eyes shut and prayed that he would be quick, that it wouldn't hurt, and if it did, that she wouldn't remember the pain.

Her body was stripped bared, exposing her completely to his view. She couldn't bear to open her eyes to see what he was about to do next. His bony fingers dug into her hips as he prepared to enter her, and she winced in anticipation –

But nothing happened.

After a full minute passed and still nothing happened, she dared to open her eyes.

Erik was frozen on top of her, his legs pinning hers down and his trousers halfway off, and his eyes locked on her body.

"Erik?" she whispered, and his eyes snapped up to meet hers. "Why don't you just…"

She trailed off and waited for him to carry on in his horrible task, one that was so wrong, she had no doubt her father was rolling in his grave.

For one gut-wrenching moment, he took in a deep, shuddering gasp, and she realized that he was crying.

Crying!

He climbed off of her, muttering to himself. "Erik is not worthy. She is too beautiful, too _pure!_ She must be an angel. It would be a tragedy to touch such perfection, and still, it would be the death of me." He paused, then turned to her. "You will be the death of me!" he shouted. "The death of me…"

He took a step away. "Erik will die," he stated so resolutely, Christine forgot her tied up hands and sought to comfort him, but she could not move. She watched helplessly and Erik wandered out of the room, tugging anxiously at his sparse head of hair.

"Erik!" she cried, but he did not seem to hear her. He shut the door and she screamed again, "_Erik!_"

There was nothing she could do. Her arms were swelling up and she could no longer feel her hands, but despite her discomfort, despite her less-than-fortunate situation, she wanted more than anything to be out there with Erik, to convince him that she was still with him, and no matter the cost, she would let him take her if it could save him.

"Erik! Let me help!" she called, struggling against the ropes, trying to see if there was a loose knot she could work at, but only managed to chaff against her raw skin. Eventually, she had to stop moving for fear that her arms would fall off. Instead, she called and called for Erik, imploring for him to come in and release her, until her voice was completely hoarse. Still, she kept at it, croaking out her pleas, sounding abominably like Carlotta had that one night of the toad. Her arms no longer felt like they were there, and she felt dizzy and lightheaded…

She woke up again, but she had no way of knowing if she had slept for five minutes or an hour, but she was still stark naked; still tied up tightly. She could not help but weep for her sorry circumstances.

"Erik!" she yelled, but it came out a croak, and she gave in to despair. There was no knowing how long this would last, and he would never be able to hear her dead voice through the stone walls.

"Please, please, _please_, God," she whispered fervently. "Please help him!"

She lay there for only heaven knew how long, giving up any hope that Erik would remember her and release her from her bonds. She remembered distantly that she should have resented him for doing this to her and nearly raping her, but the memory of his eyes simply chased away any vestiges, if there were any, of that bitterness.

She drifted in and out of consciousness, and every time she came to herself again, she wondered that she was not dead, yet. Surely no one could have endured what she had in those past few days. She only hoped that, if she should die, Erik would be all right, that he would not punish himself too severely for what had happened. She prayed feverishly for his sake, if not her own, that God would spare him the punishment of his sins. Erik was not in his right mind, and the circumstances have hardly served to help him.

She started reminiscing things, such as the time he had first tasted of her cooking, how he had taken one bite, chewed painfully slow for a minute before he politely excused himself to his quarters to finish the meal himself without her watching. She knew that he threw away the meal, and yet, it had touched her. Her cooking talents were less than deplorable, and that he would be most civil of such a thing made her thankful for his discretion.

There was the time, after she received her letter from Mamma, that Erik asked her how she was faring. Her grip over the situation was shaky, so when he asked about it, her lower lip trembled. He took note of it and uncharacteristically pulled her into his arms. It surprised her, but she welcomed it because she knew she needed it. She spoke for a long time about Mamma, which inevitable led to her memories of her father, which in turn led to a narration of her childhood. She told him as much as she could possibly remember as she sat nestled warmly in his arms.

There was the time when he taught her the piano. He stood behind her for an hour each day, patiently guiding her to play the right tunes, sometimes covering her hand in his own as he led her through the more difficult passages of whatever song she was currently learning.

The time when he was still her Angel, after her first debut, she remembered the loving caress in his tone as he told her what a splendid success she was… _The angels wept tonight!_

The first time she heard him in her dressing room, as he made himself manifest to her as the Voice…

The first time she heard his more beautiful compositions…

When she kissed him… the taste of his tears still on her lips…

His sad eyes as he turned away from her to leave her lying there; his helplessness and the vulnerability his expressive eyes exposed to her…

His voice in her ears as he cried at her feet the night he confessed his cheat…

"_Christine!"_

She could hear him even now…

He had sounded so upset, and now she longed to go back and comfort him, to tell him that all was well; that he was no longer alone.

"Christine!"

His voice sounded so real to her ears now that she wondered if she had descended into madness, now; or perhaps she was finally dying. She smiled sadly.

"Don't worry, my Angel! All is well," she said, but no sound escaped her lips.

She could feel a faint tugging in her extremities, somewhere where her arms should have been. Perhaps the angels were releasing her?

She waited for the Pearly Gates to appear before her – perchance she could see her father again! Instead, something different happened. She felt needles pricking her everywhere, and the pain of it burned and forced her to open her eyelids. In front of her, she could see Erik, his eyes wild with fear, her hands gripped in his as he rubbed them together.

"Christine, I am so sorry! Please forgive me!" he implored.

She opened her mouth to tell him that he was being ridiculous, that it was all nonsense as she had already forgiven him, but not a sound escaped her throat.

He saw her fight for her voice and found she was unable to attain it, and in utter grief and despair, he leaned his head despondently against her stomach, weeping into her. She noticed offhandedly that, though she was still naked, her bedcovers had been arranged to cover her.

Realizing that she had regained feeling in her hands, she pulled one out of Erik's hands and laid it gently on his head, slowly stroking the thin remains of his hair. He ceased weeping, and as he grew still, she let her weak arm lay limply on his head and, giving into the darkness calling to her, fell asleep.

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A/N: A couple things: I hope it's not too OOC. Second, as a friend put so splendidly, if Christine showed Erik the letter, Erik would have immediately gone out to kill Raoul because of the insults that can, without a doubt, be found within the contents of that letter, thereby putting himself in way of harm. Even if Erik did not find the letter, Christine would not have showed it to him. I'm just going to say that, instead of going out to kill Raoul (because, if he had went out to look for him, here's what would have happened in my book: Raoul could have been found as a nuisance by the police or the management of the Opera and barred from its doors; he may have moved to a new flat; any number of things - I DO NOT want to kill Raoul!) Erik instead goes in to punish Christine for her supposed "treachery." Also, seeing the letter would not clear up Christine's name, as Erik is not a mind-reader. The letter contains insults to Erik's name, and instead of throwing the letter away, she kept it, and that is all Erik understands.

Leave a review, please!


	15. Chapter 15

**Edit: I have revised some parts of this chapter. Probably nothing overly important, but hopefully it improves the readability.**

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Chapter 15

The room was dim when she woke up again. She felt utterly exhausted and spent, as though she had gone through Erik's torture chamber herself, and as she sat up to look around her, she noticed that she was alone. The room was exactly as she left it every night; her nightgown covered her quite nicely and modestly; the door was closed, as always, but she got up to see if it was locked, which is wasn't. Everything was so bizarrely _normal_ that she wondered if last night were not a strange and mad dream she had.

The only things that told her otherwise was the lack of the vase on her bedside table, which she had thrown in one of her fits, and the stark-white bandages covering her wrists. She felt the stiff fabric under the long sleeves of her nightgown and had to check that they were there, and as she reached to push the sleeves up, she noticed that her hands were covered in a strange tint of purple and green. She tried to rub the discoloration off of her, but for some odd reason, it would not leave. The movement ached her wrists, however, so she quickly gave up and left the strange paint alone.

She felt clean, which gave her a suspicion that Erik washed her while she was unconscious because she knew that she had been covered in filth and sweat when Erik had tied her up. The thought that Erik might have touched her while she was unaware made her blush with embarrassment. Here she was, a wife who refused her husband's touches, refused to give him his marital rights over her body, and he had washed her. Naked.

She wondered why the thought made her stomach flip – shouldn't she have been more ashamed of it?

She took a moment to gather her thoughts. Last nights events were not entirely clear to her. She remembered Erik had found the letter, and as she shuffled through her things in the bottom drawer, she noticed that it had been sorted through recently and that the letter was, in fact, gone.

She also remembered Erik coming in to tie her up, and then he had left, forgetting to unleash her. She needed no memory to remind her that it had happened; her wrists attested to that.

Why he had tied her up, she had no doubt. He had almost raped her, and she remembered practically begging him to do so when he stopped himself in time. Now, looking back, she was relieved that he had not. It would have been disastrous to whatever was left of their relationship if he had acceded. To him, her body would have been nothing but an object to him any longer, a plaything for whenever he was bored, and for her, she would have truly become a slave to his whims.

Still, she wondered what it would have been like…

Shaking her head furiously, she gave a mighty effort to push that thought out of her mind. Just thinking about it scared her, and not just because it was _Erik_ she thought of. It frightened her because of the hot wave of butterflies flowing through her stomach. The feeling confused her because she had never felt it before, and yet, some part of her recognized it as something natural, that the tingling in that secret place happened when one thought of someone else, and she knew immediately that "someone" was Erik. She had never thought that Erik could be something more to her than a mentor. Those feelings she felt towards him now frightened her _because_ they were for Erik.

What had changed? She felt that it had to have happened in the past few days, or perhaps during those weeks when she tried to keep Erik from going out. There was something secure and safe about Erik. His tall, dark leanness, which before had loomed before her as something dark and sinister, now was as firm and as unmovable as a strong post that she could hold on to as the earth heaved beneath her, and he became as familiar to her as the silver moonlight was on the enchanted lakes of her fairytale dreams.

She feared loneliness, and his shadowy presence was an odd comfort to her. Just as her father spun her up in dreams and fairytales as a child, Erik enveloped her in his safe and unreachable darkness, unreachable and unseen to any that may destroy them. She found it strange that before Erik, she was still a child. Her loneliness had ensured that she cling to her every memory of her departed father, thereby guaranteeing her childhood preserved within a living monument, locking her in a sort of time vacuum of childhood fancies and sweet, sugarplum memories. Her father was a wonderful parent for a child, filling her head with everything and nothing important, like Little Lotte, but he did a horrid job of bringing up a strong woman, knowledgeable of how cruel the world actually was. When Erik came into her life, she was forced to grow up, and because of her isolation, she had never had these grown up feelings with anyone but Erik.

That had to be it, she thought to herself. When she grew up, so did her body, and without anyone else to love, her body responded naturally. She did not love him, or if she did, it was purely affable.

With that thought planted firmly in her mind, she moved on to other matters. With bitter disappointment, she realized that through all the turmoil that had happened in the past few days, nothing had been resolved. All of that pain and suffering, Erik's temper and his refusal to listen to her, and then after what had happened last night… nothing had been discussed of her so-called "betrayal," and they were no closer to fixing the broken shards of their relationship than before.

How long would it take, she wondered. Perhaps he had calmed down some as the door was unlocked again. She was allowed access to the house, again. Or perhaps he had only calmed down enough to realize how his madness had hurt her, and leaving her door unlocked was his way of apologizing for now. Either way, there might be a possibility that she could start explaining things to him right away.

She cleared her throat to buoy herself up with courage and immediately flinched at the grating feeling it caused, like coarse sandpaper rubbing together, and as painful as rubbing that sandpaper against her vocal cords. She swallowed a few times to gulp down the pain and decided that she needed a drink. Cautiously, she opened her door silently, afraid that, even though Erik had left it unlocked, he would still come flying down on her as a bat with his furious night wings, but nothing happened. Encouraged by this, she silently made her way to the kitchen, casting nervous glances to every shadow and every corner that she passed.

In the kitchen, she prepared herself a warm glass of lemon water, the water taking some time to heat up. As the soothing liquid eased its way down and hit the bottom of her stomach, she realized that she had not eaten food or drink since before Erik left and she had gone looking for him. The warm liquid sloshed uncomfortably in her empty stomach, and she searched the cupboards for something nourishing. The first cupboard was bare, as was the second, but on her third try, there were some crackers that looked slightly stale. At any other time, she would have went on to look for something else, but her stomach clenched tightly, almost painful with hunger, and she ate the crackers eagerly.

"Erik could kill himself for making you so hungry. He is almost certain that, through his neglect, you would even fight over the scraps of food in the streets with the dogs."

Christine whirled around in shock, unaware that he had come up behind her. "Erik!" she cried, and would have went on with, "You gave me such a fright!" but the moment the word vibrated in her throat, it set her throat on fire that she clutched it in pain and started coughing so violently that she wondered how there was no blood coming up. The coughing was not helping much either, as it was grinding in her throat so much that it felt as though it were bleeding. Though she tried to stop, she could not manage it.

Erik, who had been standing in the doorway to the kitchen forebodingly, immediately rushed over to her in worry and concern. Tears had started forming in her eyes that she did not notice that he was there until she felt his long, cool fingers massaging her throat. Her muscles began to relax beneath his spidery hands, and her coughing mercifully receded, though her throat still burned. Eventually, he took his hands away long after her coughing spell ended.

"Do not cough," he ordered, his voice full of authority and his finger pointed in her face. "Don't speak, don't sneeze, don't cry – I would even go as far to say don't breathe, but that would be asking a bit too much."

She cracked a smile at that, but he did not notice. He warmed a cup of wine for her and instructed her to drink it slowly. She did so, and when she handed the glass back to him, her throat felt greatly soothed and her belly warm with the alcohol. She smiled faintly at the woozy feeling already spreading through her limbs.

Erik led her out of the kitchen and seated her on the settee. She sank down into the cushioned seat gratefully and let out a sigh of contentment. It took her a moment to notice that Erik was still standing uncertainly in front of her, and she almost giggled at how slow that wine was making her.

"Christine," he murmured nervously. "I – I – Erik _must _know if your throat…"

She leaned over and took his hand, smiling reassuringly to let him know that she felt fine, for that was what she thought he was asking about.

"No, no, Christine," he said, understanding the exchange. "Was it me who did that to you? Did I – did I try, make _any_ attempt at all to, to choke you?"

Christine's confusion gave way to understanding. She wondered how much he remembered, in his madness, of last night – if he heard her screaming herself hoarse as she called for Erik to free her, to listen to her. She shook her head quickly, and Erik's shoulders sagged with relief.

"Of course not. You have no bruises on that lovely neck of yours." His voice was thick with his relief and filled with a breathless sigh, as if he had run a long race. "Your arms have not been spared, and for that, Erik is sorry. He is such an incompetent dolt, the lowest of the low, and he could kill himself for you."

She glared at him, and he saw.

"I am sorry, I am sorry, I must not say such things about myself," he exhaled heavily.

She nodded, satisfied that they were able to communicate so well despite her inability to voice herself.

"Erik truly is sorry, though, for your hands. Such purity, such perfection, like a flawless, unspoiled apple, and he went and ravaged them." His face was turned down, looking at her hands still in his. "You bruise as easily as an apple, my dear," he added offhandedly.

It was then Christine realized that the blue and green paint on her hands was not paint at all. Horrified, and wondering how much of her body was covered in bruises, she pushed her sleeves up as far as they would go, and to her horror, both of her arms were completely covered with the nasty discoloration, made all the more apparent next to the stark white of her bandages. It made her sick just looking at them.

Her eyes filled up with tears and a knot formed in her throat, and when the sob rose up, she immediately regretted it for the sore pain it caused in her throat. Instead of swallowing her tears down, she began crying in earnest. Seeing her bruises unleashed the dam of tears that had been held back, tears of frustration, regret, and sorrow. Perhaps it was the wine, but she cried for her inability to do things right for Erik, for the repression she felt under his tight thumb, for the pain she felt in her heart and in her mind, as well as the physical hurts caused by Erik's hand, and for all of the missed opportunities and the sorrow that this life must be her own.

Erik, however, could not know that she thought all of these things as she cried, so he could not know from where the source of her weeping stemmed. His hands began fluttering distressed around her, never quite sure where to touch: her hair, a lift of the chin, squeezing her hand briefly before flying up to rest on her shoulder, patting both cheeks, smoothing across her forehead and pushing her hair out of her face before gripping her shoulders again.

"Christine, oh, I am so sorry! But they are just bruises; they should fade in a week or so! I myself have endured much worse before, when I lived with the gypsies, and in Persia. Once, I had looked on a woman's bare face, and so they whipped me thirty times with a scourge. You don't know what a scourge is? It is a whip, but not a whip like they use on the carriage horses to speed them up, oh no! That is mere child's play compared to a scourge! A scourge has many strips of leather, designed to rip the flesh off of a man's back, and they had glued shards of glass and broken pottery to shred me apart. Did you know most men could not survive more than twenty, twenty-five strikes? And even with a normal bullwhip! I had almost died there, in Persia, all for looking behind the veil of a woman! It took me months to recover, and even then I could hardly venture further than my own apartments."

This dreadful story had shocked Christine out of her tears, and she sat, listening with mortified fascination. She had thought that Erik had only suffered for the rebuffs he had experienced for his face, but never this! She had never heard of such cruel treatment, and it hurt Christine's heart to hear the unjustifiable punishment for something as innocent as looking on a woman's face.

She felt a new feeling of respect rising up within her for Erik, for all of the hardships that he must have endured.

"Erik," she whispered. Whispering couldn't hurt, could it? "I'm so sorry."

A wall that she hadn't realized was down sprang back up, slamming her out of a moment of understanding between them. He shushed her and brought a finger to her lips. "What did I say about speaking? We must rest that golden voice of yours. After all, it was Erik's fault that this happened."

He rolled back on his heels and straightened out of his crouching position on the floor and went back into the kitchen. Christine remained where she was, staring at the place where Erik had kneeled before her unseeingly, reflecting on the story Erik had just shared with her. He very rarely revealed any of his past with her. She knew nothing of his mother, except that he had one and that the furniture had been hers; nor did she know anything of his childhood. Oh, she knew some things, but only slight pieces that she could use to sketch together his life in a few short sentences.

He was born to a woman who did not love him. She knew nothing of the father. He lived with the gypsies, then with the Persians, and in some way or another, escaped Prussia when it proved too dangerous for him, with the help of that strange "daroga" fellow, and returned to France. Upon his return, he came to Paris, found the Opera Garnier, and promptly moved in and discovered her.

That was it.

It struck her that she knew so very little about her own husband, one she had known for at least a year, now. She had friends that she had known for two weeks or less, and she already knew everything about their life history, more or less. With Erik, she didn't know his last name, and for heaven's sakes, she didn't even know if "Erik" was his real name, or an alias he picked up along the way! She didn't know his age (except that he was perhaps forty or fifty), or if he had ever had another woman in his life before her. That thought made her flare up for a brief moment before she angrily pushed the feeling away. She reminded herself that Erik had never had a woman before, that no woman had ever been willing to love him before, but he struck her as the melodramatic. Surely at fifty, he would have had to marry at some point.

She knew nothing. They had been acquainted for a year now, and they were barely more than strangers. It made her sad.

Collecting herself, she followed him into the kitchen, determined to learn something about him. As she went in, she noticed Erik was sitting very still at the small table. Hesitantly, but determined, she stood before him with a questioning expression printed on her features.

Erik glanced up at her, but looked very quickly away.

"Erik has a habit of ruining everything he touches," he remarked softly, gesturing to her.

Christine was very careful not to react to his self-degrading comment. She sat down.

"When I first saw you, Christine, you were a beautiful flower that refused to bloom. It was as if you were caught in a perpetual winter frost that prevented your growth. Your sorrow and loneliness attracted me to you. In some ways, you reminded me of myself as a child, before… before everything. All I had ever wanted was to be swept away from everything in this world; much like you lived in your dreams and stories of your childhood. It seemed that you never grew up; you were still only five! All that potential; all that beauty, and it made me almost regret that it had to be wasted on a child who refused to give up her dreams. If only she would open her eyes and realize that if she wasted any more time on her dreams, they would rot and corrode into a fetid mess of unfulfilled wishes and bitter regrets, and she would be left with the empty and ugly shell that she was, no longer useful to the world or herself."

Christine had never heard him talk of how he discovered her. She had wondered, on multiple occasions, what had induced him to make himself known to her. Why her, and not any of the other more talented girls in the Opera?

"I wanted to make you bloom. It pained me to know that if I did otherwise, left you alone to your empty dreams, the bud would wilt and rot and eventually cut away as a worthless piece of the collected whole; dismembered from the unified rose bush. I was beginning to succeed; after your first debut, you were so much more beautiful that the first time I had chanced upon you. Your voice, mediocre before, like a child's voice, had turned into a nightingale's voice. You enchanted everyone with that voice. I was pleased that I had made you bloom. _I_, who had never managed to make one beautiful thing in this world without some edge of biting menace to it, had made a perfect rose. You can never have any idea what it was like to make something like you. Swords are beautiful, but dangerous, and they can kill. But _you!_ You were flawless; you were a rose."

He paused to look at her, and she smiled encouragingly. _My poetic Erik_, she thought to herself. She wondered where he was leading with this.

"But even roses have thorns." She gasped, and his eyes were cruel. "Yes, Christine. Even the most beautiful creature can be the most vicious. You hurt me beyond repair with that _boy_ of yours. I saw you kiss him, and every time you gave him your lips, every innocent gesture you bestowed on him, it was as if you were plunging a knife into me, repeatedly."

His tone was spiteful, and the fire in his eyes frightened her somewhat. He noticed and attempted to cool his voice, though the undertones of vindictiveness were still there.

"I was angry, and my anger made you wilt until I completely destroyed you. I took the rose and completely mutilated it; I took your head and every pretty little thought that filled it, and now it is filled with thoughts of horror at the mere sight of me, like a bird when it sees the cat. To keep you from flying, I caged you, and birds hate cages. I could not have hoped that you would stay with me willingly. Every creature jumps at the chance when given the opportunity to break free. I could hardly blame you for that; I made you that way, after all."

His monologue was strangely detached now, almost as if he were speaking to himself. For a long while, he was silent in his thoughts, and Christine wondered if he forgot she was sitting with him at the table. And indeed, when he looked up from his reverie, he looked inexorably surprised at her being there.

"I am very sorry that I crushed you with my darkness, and I would let you go, but a bird with a broken wing cannot fly. Once I let you free, you would try to limp away into a world that you no longer belong. The managers have nearly forgotten you and would never take you back. True, Carlotta is gone, but she has been easily replaced. You may have your young man, but his nobility would crush you. His family would never approve, and the stuffy social life that always comes with titles would destroy you. I know you; you are a simple girl, unused to such a life. Such innocence would be leeched out of you until you are nothing but a pale and mocking replica of what you used to be. You have no money; your inheritance is all used up. And your young man; he may be a devoted little dog right now, but if you waited long enough, his adoration for you would eventually wear off, once he becomes truly involved in the life he was born into. It always happens. I've seen young, vibrant girls give up everything they had for men like him, and at first, they are happy, but eventually, their husbands leave them for soft and youthful mistresses, and they are left unhappy in their deplorably wealthy circumstances. And your mother Valérius is but a shadow of herself. She could hardly provide for you, as her health has greatly declined, and all of the wealth, as little as it was in the first place, is dried up for the cost of medical expenses. She cannot provide for herself; how could she provide for you? How could you possibly care for yourself in this cruel, cruel world?"

She could see what he was trying to do; trying to spread this black despair into her to crush any blossoming hopes she had for freedom, and even though she had long ago given up such flights of fancy, she couldn't help but let a few tears slip out with the hopeless situation he had painted for her. She longed to cry out. Longed to hope that such a world did not exist. Men were inertly good, she wanted to say. Raoul would never be so heartless to leave her for someone else! And surely there was somewhere she could go; someplace in someone's heart she had not yet touched. Surely in this world full of millions of people she had not met yet had a kind soul that would take pity on her circumstance and bring her in under the shelter of their wings.

But such an optimistic fantasy had no place in either Erik's world or hers. Even if she were blessed with another's compassion to take her in, eventually she would be expected to leave them and move on, and she would be alone again. She truly had no one in the world left but Erik, and her soul cried out to him, for him to take her and protect her, to shield her from the brutality of the world.

He still thought her a traitor, though. He still believed that she would fly at the first opportunity to Raoul's safe arms; believed that she was uncaring enough to leave Erik behind and never look back. Nothing had changed from last night, when he had discovered her out of the house. He still did not know how much she had changed, how much she longed to leave the past behind so that they could move on and be happy.

Silently, she reached across the table and took his hands into her own. He looked uncertainly at her, and she smiled softly. _I understand_, she willed the thought to him, squeezing his fingers slightly.

He looked relieved.

"Well then," he said, standing up. "There will be no more running away, will there, Christine? No more plotting behind Erik's back, is that so?"

She nodded unresistingly. She knew that if she bothered arguing over what had actually happened, voice or not, that they would lose whatever grounds they covered this morning. Erik needed this; he needed to be reassured. If he noticed any fight in her, he would clam up and refuse to open before he was ready. She admitted defeat. _Choose your battles._

The silence between them was palpable. Each of them were waiting, waiting for the shaky ground beneath their feet to give way and heave beneath them. She waited for him to read something that wasn't there and explode, and he waited for her to lurch forward on her leash and attempt to escape whatever bonds he imagined he put her in. Nothing happened, so Erik nodded curtly to her.

"None of this silliness. You are mine, and you belong nowhere else and with no one else than with your Erik."

He turned away from her and fixed her some broth.

Christine released a breath she had not realized she had been holding.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: Thank you all for your lovely reviews! I appreciate every one of them. For anyone who would care to know, I edited the monologue last chapter and made it less of a monologue and more of a conversation - I hope it's more bearable. In addition, I also edited chapters 1-4 and am currently working on 5-6. My goal is to completely rewrite chapters 8 and 9 in favor of something more believable. I'll let you know when I get there.**

** I don't think it's essential to reread them, but if you want to, go ahead; be my guest. It only makes me feel better to have a better story on board.**

**Blatant Italian poet reference ahoy! See if you can spot it. Also, a slight reference to one of my favorite stories, and a wish to the author that she update it - if possible. (Hint: the title is loosely embedded somewhere in here)  
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Chapter 16

Despite Erik's talk with her, things were still rather frigid between them for days afterwards. Christine spent the better part of her entire day alone, except when he came to change her bandages or to feed her – all done in stiff silence. He would not allow her to talk, and he was not inclined to speak. But most of the time, Erik was locked up in his own room.

She could feel herself growing madder and madder with the quiet. Five cellars underground, one can truly experience pure silence, with no people next door, or carriages rolling past the house, or the birds singing songs to the dawn in the morning. The only sound there was were those made by herself. If there was a time for her to begin singing again, it would have been then, but as it was, she could barely croak out a sound, let alone a full scale.

Worse still was the music. It's tragedy exceeded the time when she had unmasked him – so long ago! Its music was no longer tragically beautiful. The music ripped across her soul in distorted fragments, limping along in frenzied pain. It was Able when his brother slew him; Maccabaeus when Ptolemy deceived him and his sons; Caesar when he was betrayed; Judas when he realized his deceit; Lucifer, when he fell. It was a bitter, long wail of a distraught widow who witnessed her husband's murder, the angry scream of a demented lunatic. The passion wasn't the same; the fire didn't make her burn in secret places. It wasn't anything like that guilty pleasure she experienced all those months ago. This was Hell, at its deepest and most darkest. This was the ninth circle of the inferno.

It made her want to scream, and perhaps she did. Whenever his music played, she sought to get as far away from it as she possibly could, hiding beneath the comforter she dragged into the bathroom with the door to her bedroom and bathroom both locked. It never seemed to work. The music rattled through the walls and resonated through her bones. It worked its way into her marrow and pierced her broken heart.

He did not play it often, but when he did, it burned her by degree and froze her beating heart simultaneously. When she emerged, she was numb for what seemed hours afterward, trying to regroup her facilities.

Her nightmares were worse than ever. Dark angels visited her and taunted her viciously. Sometimes they came twice in one night, and there was no shadowy wraith keeping vigil by her bed. She wrapped her arms around herself and held her own hand, pretending one was long, thin, and spidery, soothing the back of her hand with its thumb.

Amidst all the silence, she had plenty of time to think. Time to think of time, and how quickly it was running out. Her mamma was dying, she knew, but for how long? How long until it was too late for her to sit by her bed and hold her hand as she passed from this world to the next? It chilled her to know that the next time she would resurface, her mother would no longer be there for her. Once she was gone, Christine would truly be alone in the world. After her, Erik would be the only soul left for her company, and she had no hope of reacquainting herself with her old friends. Not with the way Erik was acting.

She wanted to go to Erik and demand that he take her up to say her farewells. She wanted the courage to yell at him and tell him that she was her own person, and she could do whatever in the world pleased her. But wanting and doing were two entirely different things.

Countless evenings passed by in which she watched Erik in those rare moments he would keep her company. She watched him, but never said a word. She told herself that it was because he would not let her speak, but she could have easily obtained paper and ink.

She wished she could ask for his comfort, ask to start over and leave all of their past mistakes behind. She wanted to move on and learn to accept him, but she was too cowardly to ask.

Erik was in an odd mood tonight. Rather than the stoic, unfeeling man he had been for the past week or more – Christine could never tell how much time passed by in his underground realm – Erik seemed surprisingly doting tonight. As she sipped her broth and ate her soggy bread, she was constantly aware of Erik's penetrating stare on her every move. When she looked up at him, he acted like a shy schoolboy and pretended he had never been looking at her. If she did catch his gaze, he would cock his head at her, and she would be the one to look away shyly.

When dinner was finished, he didn't leave her to her own devices. He led her to the library and handed her a book. After a moment, he changed his mind and took the book out of her hands to change her bandages.

She didn't mention to him that he had already done so scant hours before.

Her bruises were almost faded away – they were now a sickly shade of greenish-yellow. Her wrists were still sore, and when he uncovered them, she saw that the raw wounds had hardened into scabs, scarlet rings adorning her yellow-tinted skin.

He rubbed them with oil, per his usual ministrations, but tonight, instead of covering them back up, he continued to rub them until she grew uncomfortable with the strangeness of it all. After a while, he ceased pretending he was doing anything productive and merely held them delicately. Slowly, as if afraid he would break her, he dipped his head down and kissed her scarlet manacles through the silk of his mask.

Then, just as suddenly, he snapped straight as a rod and started to leave the room.

"Wait – " she called out, but he whirled around to face her.

"_Don't use your voice_," he rebuked.

Like a penitent child, she shrank back and pointed to the bandages on the floor. Mollified by his confusion, he cocked his head at her, silently asking her to explain.

She lifted her wrists, wrapping her hands around the redness, then pointed to the bandages again. Nodding his understanding, he returned to her side and bound her healing wounds with fresh bandages. It took him longer than usual because he was trembling.

_Thank you,_ she mouthed to him when he finished, and he nodded again. As he stood to leave, though, she made a grab for his hand. He jerked in surprise, and she let go, suddenly shy for her boldness. _Sorry,_ she mouthed again.

He looked undecided as to what he was going to do next, so before he could make a decision, she grabbed the book he had offered her to read, and handed it to him. She had no idea what story it was, only that for some reason, she wanted Erik to stay with her tonight.

His shoulders almost sagged with relief, though Christine could not all be sure of it. He obliged her and took the book from her hands, sat down in a chair opposite from her, and began to read for her.

She had never liked Poe before, but on this night, his works became her favorite. Listening to Erik's voice rolling over her like the swollen sea on a starlit night, she couldn't help but fall in love with the stories he told her. The House of Usher held a new meaning for her, that a man's home will only destroy him if he first destroys himself, that he could have been saved from the destruction of the old creaking house if he had not brought the horrors down on his own head. She no longer felt reminiscent when she heard the macabre tales of horror and morbidity, but she felt apart from them, now; strangely distant from them as she had never been before.

The poor man who was buried alive in the wine cellars, the dying family that had been crushed in the rubble of their own home, the countless souls lost to darkness and madness – she no longer related to their horrible demises. She felt free; the whole world felt opened to her now that she heard the warmth in Erik's tone again. She knew that something was happening to their relationship, though she didn't know how prominent a change it was, yet.

When he finally finished, she had her hands tangled in her hair, rapt in her attention to the stories he revealed to her. They made her sad, and Erik leaned back, closing the book and watching her with curious eyes as the emotions ran their course.

When she realized he was looking at her, she smiled up at him.

"How did you like it, Christine?" She noticed this was the first time he had said her name in days. "I know that Poe isn't the most pleasant of reads."

She smiled wider, her face brightening, and he leaned forward, surprised at her response.

"You like it?" he asked, and she nodded brightly.

"My dear, you know that this is a far cry from your fairytales, no?"

She smirked at him as if to say of course she knew, and he leaned back again, wagging his head in disbelief. "I thought you wouldn't like it," he murmured, and she shrugged in reply, smoothing her mussed hair down as she settled back onto the couch.

Shortly thereafter, he sent her off to bed, but Christine had never felt happier or lighter than she did for a long time. No dream visited her that night.

..

The next morning, after Christine finished eating her breakfast, Erik made her drink down a horrible concoction he brewed for her voice. When she sputtered at the bitter taste, he took the cup out of her hand until she was steady enough to drink more.

"Pinch your nose and swallow," he instructed when she refused to take another whiff of the stuff.

She grimaced, but she went ahead and did as he said, scrunching her eyes shut as she held her nose with one hand and tipped the cup with the other. It did little to help with the foul taste of the medicine, but Erik had a spoonful of honey ready for her when she finally downed the contents. Gratefully, she suckled on the spoon until she could get no more sweetness out of it.

"I have some vocal warm-ups for you," he told her as she handed the spoon back to him. Realizing what he said, she beamed at him, eager to start talking again.

"Mind you, child, this does not mean you can start talking whenever you feel like it. I do not want to strain your voice."

Slightly deflated, she pouted at him. She didn't even sing, anymore. Why was he being so careful?

He asked her to open her mouth, and though she was not entirely sure why he asked this of her, she obeyed. He looked carefully into it, making her feel uneasy, and he seemed satisfied by whatever he saw there.

"The swelling has gone down. It's not as puffy or red as it was last week. Say something," he ordered, not explaining anything he said.

She wondered how he knew what to look for. "Something?" she repeated dumbly, her voice cracking embarrassingly from neglect.

He saw her flush, and he explained. "That is to be expected, my dear. You haven't spoken for over a week. When you neglect your voice for any period of time, it will crack until it grows used to speaking again, but if it does not have the proper care, excessive damage can be done. This is why I want to go over some exercises to warm your voice again."

With that, he swooped into the first lesson she had for a very long time. It felt strange to be instructed under his tutelage again, but somehow it seemed very normal. He had her repeat vowels to him like a parrot until her voice was sufficiently warmed, then he had her go over some phrases, and he critiqued her diction and the shape of her mouth until she was ready to snap at him.

"Am I learning how to speak, again, like I don't know how already?" she said, bristling when he told her how to pronounce a certain word for the third time.

"Essentially, yes, my dear."

"I lost my voice, Erik, not the power of speech."

"Your pronunciation is deplorable. It has greatly declined over the past year. We might as well kill two birds with one stone."

"I don't pay attention to pronunciation because I am not singing, anymore," she said slowly, her voice low. "I will not sing again, so it is useless to teach me."

She regretted saying so when Erik withdrew like an injured turtle. Sticks and stones, she thought bitterly, and yet somehow, words cause the most damage.

"I'm sorry, Erik," she said, reaching for his hand, but he skittered away and went back into the lesson. She did not complain anymore after that.

She spoke only for half an hour, and when Erik told her to stop, she did not fight. Instead, she obeyed him immediately, and her submission surprised him slightly.

"What do you want to do?" he asked, and she smiled at him, pleased.

She pointed to the piano and fixed him under her large, pleading gaze, hoping that he would play something for her. His response concerned her, though. When she made her request known, he nodded rigidly and walked over to the piano as stiff as a board. The notes he played were mechanical, as though he were making a colossal effort to control himself.

Finally, when she could take no more of the odd sounding music, she walked over to him and touched him lightly on the shoulder. His reaction was impressive.

The moment her fingers touched him, his arm flew out and struck her across the chest, and she found herself on the floor, the air knocked out of her lungs. Dazed and confused, she looked up at Erik, who had flown off of the piano bench and was now wringing his hands, trembling like a leaf. The air finally rushed into her, and she gasped greedily.

Erik fell to his knees apologetically. "I'm so sorry," he gasped. "I didn't mean to!" He pulled her up into a decent sitting position and let go of her as quickly as he could. "You just have no idea what sort of affect you have over me. The way you looked at me just now, it made me…" he trailed off and shook his head. "Sometimes Erik cannot control himself." He took in a shuddering breath. "But I will not allow him to hurt you. You are safe," he murmured, suddenly complacent, and he lifted a trembling hand to brush her cheek gently. The touch shocked her, and she decided it wasn't entirely unpleasant. "Erik will not hurt you."

She smiled gently at him, hoping to reassure him, but he hissed loudly between his teeth. He went over and sat stiffly on the couch. She wondered at his odd behavior and followed him to sit by him. He stared at her as if she were insane.

"Christine would do well not to follow me," he said, his voice almost pleading her to keep her distance. "You would be the death of me."

She froze as he words resurrected a recent memory – one in which she was lying naked, dangerously close to her deflowering before Erik suddenly found his strength and refused to give in to his desires. She sucked in a deep breath as she realized why he was acting so strangely.

He could not control himself, he said. His love was dangerous, as dangerous and mesmerizing as the flames of a fire. She realized anew what danger she was in, but oddly enough, she was not afraid. She had been with Erik for so long, she did not bother considering the consequences of losing her soul anymore.

"I trust you," she whispered, taking his hand and wrapping it in her own. She smiled tentatively at him, and he stared at her, flabbergasted. He brushed his thumb over the back of her hand experimentally, and her smile relaxed. She didn't notice how he seemed to melt halfway down the seat like hot candle wax.

"I missed you," she said, and when he did not rebuke her for using her voice, she went on. "Don't ever leave me alone, again. Please."

Erik looked as though he could worship the ground she walked on. "I never left you," he said, halfway gasping for air.

"I was lonely, and you locked yourself in your room. It was awful." She frowned with the memory of the past week.

"You – you want my company?" he asked, incredulous.

"Of course I do," she replied. "What makes you think I didn't?"

"I was under the impression you did not find my company all that desirable, so I left you to your own amusements."

"Well, I've decided that you are far more interesting to be around than my own 'amusements.' You could entertain me for hours." She was completely unaware of the double meaning behind her words until they left her mouth. Her face flamed, and Erik gaped.

"Could – could I hold your hand like this?" he asked, glancing down at their interlocked fingers.

She blushed and nodded, and Erik beamed at her.

"Thank you, Erik," she murmured.

He shook his head and put a finger to her mouth. She jerked in surprise, and he pulled away, his eyes dark.

"Do not speak, my dear. You are still recovering." He turned away slightly, muttering to himself, "Give her an inch, she'll take an ell."

She huffed and turned away, slightly irked that she had to remain in silence, but she also wondered at the enduring tone of his voice, almost as if he were teasing her for her insolence.

Silence fell on them like an old familiar blanket, and Christine reveled in it. Eventually, she did not know how it happened, she found herself cuddled on his lap, her head resting on his thin chest as his rolling, lyrical voice washed over her and made her completely insatiable. The more he spoke, the more she wanted to listen until she was brimming, overflowing with his toxic, addicting voice that awoke such passions and yearnings deep within her.

His feather-light fingers brushed the back of her neck, twirling into her silken curls, and she jerked in surprise. The lyrical motion of his voice did not miss a beat, though his hand froze against her. He moved a finger, questioning, as if asking her permission to continue. She relaxed and smiled against his heart, and she could almost feel his sigh of relief as he spoke about irritating sopranos and their diva temper tantrums.

_What an odd thing to talk about,_ she thought, her body growing heavy and sleepy and Erik gently pulled his fingers through her hair,_ at such a time as this._

Her dreams were intoxicating.

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**Another A/N: It makes me slightly nervous to end it on such fluffiness, but... _voila!_**

**Everyone, I have a HUGE favor to ask. In two weeks, I'm leaving on vacation, and when I get back, I'll be jetting on a plane to France (and yes, I'll be seeing the Palais Garnier. THE Palais Garnier!) I'll be there for three months, and likely as not, I won't get much of a chance to write until Christmas holidays. All I'm asking is... (BRIBE ALERT BRIBE ALERT) is that you give me enough and help me hit 100, and maybe I'll crank out another chapter before I'm gone for good. (grins shamelessly) Pretty please?**

**Love you all, and I'll see you when I see you!  
**


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: Wow, you guys! Thanks so much! I've never reached 100 before, and this is cause for celebration! (fyi, I will never ask that of you again. I know numbers don't matter, but, dang! It feels great to be at 100!) Thanks for your feedback and comments (mwah!) I'll send you all a personalize photo of Erik, if I see him ;)  
**

**Sorry this chapter took so long, but I wanted to make it special for all of you before I left. For that matter, I want to apologize for any mistakes in this chapter, as I don't have time to edit. I am leaving TODAY and will not be back until Christmas. I won't have the time to write (unless, of course, I end up using my time writing instead of studying or looking at France). Don't expect another chapter until then, and if I surprise you, well then, I'll surprise you!**

**Have a fabulous autumn everyone!  
**

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Chapter 17

Three blocks away in a sad flat as dim and wasted away as its owner, an old woman sat, staring out of the window. It was a rather useless activity for her, as her eyesight had become rather poor in the last month, but it was a habit of hers, and there wasn't much else for her to do.

A fair, youthful man came into the room, the corners of his eyes dragging down at the sight of the poor woman.

"Come, Madame," he murmured to her as he pulled her wicker wheelchair away from the window. He latched the windows shut and wrapped her up in her shawl. "You will catch a chill if you keep doing this."

"When shall my dear Christine come home? She is late. Do you think her angel is keeping her?"

His mouth turned down in distaste. "No, Madame. She is in Italy, remember?"

Sadly, she did not. She could not even remember him coming to tell him this. Who was he, anyway?

"Aren't you that young man who came in last week after Christine was engaged?" she asked, recalling a certain detail of Christine's pale face, no doubt from shock and disbelief that she was asked to marry, with a glint of gold on her finger. The ring was simple, tasteful. It suited the young girl. She could not imagine anything gaudy on her little surrogate daughter.

He sighed, and it sounded sad, if a little bit frustrated. "Yes, I did. What a joyous occasion that was. It is a pity her fiancé died in that horrible accident, isn't it?"

Her face paled in alarm. "She said no such thing! Is that why she left so suddenly? It seems as though I do not remember her even leaving for Italy!"

The young man nodded solemnly. "Yes. It seems as though it were almost yesterday she were here."

His eyes were far away, and his pallor was ashen, almost sickly.

"What ails you, my dear boy?" she asked, covering his hand with her withered one. "You look worn."

He nodded again. "I am only sick with love."

She understood that. "Yes, Christine is often sick with love. When her angel doesn't say anything to her for a day, she is inconsolable, poor dear. What a blessing that God should allow her to marry him!" she exclaimed, forgetting that the boy next to her had already said that the man had died. "She is thrilled. She doesn't like to admit it, but someone who is love struck has a look about them, and she had it."

"Perhaps she was struck with love for someone else?" he suggested hopefully.

She shook her head. "No, no. No, we spoke of nothing else! Her angel is a beautiful creature."

"Her angel is a lying, devious bastard," he spat bitterly.

"Young man!" the old woman gasped, appalled at his words. "You had better ask forgiveness for those awful words! It is blasphemy to say such things."

The young man said nothing after that. Eventually, she turned back to stare out the window with her poor eyes, nothing taking shape behind the veiled glass. Really, the weather was so dreadful; she would never see Christine come home! She wondered what was taking so long; perhaps her angel was keeping her after rehearsal? Or perhaps they were even eloping! She would be overjoyed at the news, but it made her sad that they would not have thought to invite her. But then, what did she know of the going ons of angels?

He sometimes visited her. Sometimes, there were huge, empty gaps in her memory that she could not fill, but she could often recall the voice of an angel singing to her in the dead of night. She could not explain it, except that Christine would have asked her angel to wish her dear mamma's safety and comfort. She was very thoughtful that way.

She heard a noise to her left, and she turned to it in slight alarm. She had not realized anyone was with her. A fair, youthful man looked at her in slight concern.

"Hello!" she said brightly. His countenance was so sweet, she liked him immediately without his having to say a word. "Are you here for Christine?"

A dark shadow crossed his features, a look of pitiable sorrow. She did not know why he should look so sad, except perhaps he truly wished to see Christine?

"I do not know when she will be home. Her angel has her, so I know she is safe."

The youth hung his head. "Madame," he sighed. "I do wish she would return to you. Her angel would indeed be very merciful to grant her that one thing before it is to late."

She had a strange feeling that she knew this man, but she could not possibly recall how she did.

"Do I know you?" she inquired. "You seem awfully familiar."

He hung his head and hid his face in his hands – a weary gesture. She was almost sorry to have asked the question.

"No, Madame. I suppose I am no more than a perfect stranger to you."

She saw a few glistening drops of diamonds slip out between his fingers, but she did not remark upon it. Men, she knew, seemed dreadfully ashamed of their tears.

"I do hope Christine will be home soon," she sighed wistfully.

The young man continued to weep.

...

Christine was warm and comfortable, more comfy than one ought to be. She lay sprawled on something unfamiliar – _not her bed,_ she thought – but it was soft, and she stretched, relishing in the feel of the satiny pillows rub against the smoothness of her cheek and the bareness of her arm. She felt so content in her warm cocoon, she couldn't help but think of a lazy cat stretched out in front of the warmth of a hearth. _I am a cat._

Eventually, her drowsy eyes opened slightly as her mind continued to rouse itself. She recognized the room she was in, not as her own room, but to be the parlor where she and Erik last sat together in quiet harmony, holding hands.

She blushed at the memory.

"Erik?" she murmured in sleepy surprise when she noticed him crouching near her head, watching her movements with poignant scrutiny. She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, and his posture seemed to relax. "What time is it?"

There were so many questions she could have asked, but that one seemed the safest question she could have asked without seeming rude. _Why are you watching me sleep? Why am I sleeping here, completely indecorous and unaware of my surroundings? Not that I'd suspect you of anything…_

"Near on supper-time," he replied coolly. "I must say, your nightmares seemed to have diminished some."

She frowned thoughtfully. "I noticed that. I haven't had any last night, either." Her voice cracked with the last vestiges of sleep, and she grimaced in embarrassment. Erik immediately straightened and pressed a finger to her lips.

"Remember, Christine. You're voice still needs to rest. After all of the damage you put it through, we must give it time to heal."

She had the urge to roll her eyes childishly, and the impulse made her smile good-naturedly at Erik. He pulled back from her and stood up.

"Do you wish to eat?" he asked, sounding eager, though she did not understand why. He never seemed to want to eat with her.

She shrugged and made a sign showing she wasn't all that hungry. Sleeping all day had put off the edge to her appetite, and she still felt slightly groggy.

"A light supper, I suppose would suffice, then?" he said after some deliberation. Christine agreed, nodding. It would do very well for her not to become as thin as Erik because she didn't feel hungry. She appreciated his concern for her, and that he was quite willing to look after her. The thought made her pause, though, and she wondered when the last time it was since Erik ate.

Before he turned for the kitchen, she waved for his attention, pointed to him, mimed eating, and then pointed to herself.

He balked in surprise, and he tried to interpret her actions. "You wish for me to feed you?" Something in the way he said it made her realize he was quite amused at the idea, and her eyebrow quirked. She mimed eating again, then pointed to Erik and herself and pushed her hands together, hoping that he would interpret that correctly this time.

"You wish for me to eat with you?" he seemed even more astonished by this that the previous analysis. She nodded, suddenly nervous that he would not accept.

He seemed to gape, and if his mask had not been there, she imagined his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. Suddenly, she knew what his answer would be, even before he said it.

"No, Christine. It is quite impossible. I am sorry."

She huffed, but she let it go, hoping she would be braver next time in order she might pursue it.

She had a dinner of bread and cheese with fresh fruit. He brewed her another glass of that horrible concoction, and she choked it down as quickly as she could so she could wash it down with a warm glass of wine.

She sighed and leaned back in satisfied contentment, feeling ever so much more like a lazy cat than she did when she first woke up. If Erik pampered her anymore, she feared that she would actually turn into an actual feline.

It took her a moment to realize that Erik seemed nervous, twisting his hands in silent deliberation. He fidgeted and cleared his throat, and Christine looked up at him in anticipation. However, he only stood up and walked out of the room. Slightly startled, she followed him to see him disappear into her room. With a cry of alarm, she rushed after him to see what he meant to do in there, and she tried to remember that propriety did not matter here in Erik's underground abode. In fact, he was her husband, so she should not be all that surprised to see Erik go in and out of her room without permission.

Nevertheless, they were an odd couple to begin with, so seeing Erik go in was probably the equivalent of seeing your waking up next to your father in your marriage bed.

She pushed through the door to see him rifling through her wardrobe. After a few moments of searching, he emerged with a shawl, saving her from asking the question of what he was looking for.

"We're going out," he ordered. "Now."

She was thunderstruck. Her mind was quite scattered that she could only slip the shawl around her shoulders and follow him out of her room like a dumb animal. It was only when he opened the front door when she skittered.

"But Erik, I'm not dressed properly," she said.

"Who says you need to dress for the occasion? No one will see you."

She blushed. "You would," she murmured shyly.

He paused and considered her for a moment, his eyes sliding all over her body with such a penetrating stare, she could almost _feel_ his gaze trailing like a finger over her skin. It made her feel vulnerable, and she flushed a deeper red.

But then his finger _did_ touch her, at the corner of her lip, gingerly at first. When he was not reproached, he spread his hand over her warm cheek, his fingers reaching into her hair. She shivered at the feeling it invoked deep within her.

"You are beautiful," he whispered with desperate sincerity that her mind went as blank as a slate and she dropped the matter entirely.

Reaching up, she took Erik's hand in her own and smiled at him. "Can we go, then?" Remembering that they were finally – _finally _– going out of the house, she could feel the tiny little butterflies dance excitedly in her stomach, giving her the sensation that she was floating, rather than walking on the ground. She felt like a happy schoolgirl on vacation.

Her beaming at him must have made him bashful, though, because he ducked his head and rushed out the door, tugging on her hand so she would follow. Obediently, she trailed after him.

It took her a while to realize that Erik had no mask on, but when a shaft of light drifted across his face (and she had happened to glance up at that moment) she was really quite surprised to see his profile, which was odd in itself. She had never seen Erik willingly go without a mask; it was as much a part of him as a dress was for her. But what she found even more surprising than this was the fact that Erik grew a nose.

He heard her cry of alarm and looked down at her briefly. When he saw her inquisitive stare, he lifted an eyebrow. She glanced away quickly, disconcerted by his naked face. It wasn't that it was frightful; it _was_ ugly, but it was something one could easily get used to, and that was just it – she wasn't used to it. She was used to having the blank screen of the silk mask separating them from complete communication. She had never completely realized how essential a face was in order to communicate with another person until she had met Erik. The first few days were a little awkward for her, since she had not been all that sure how he had been reacting to her inquiries, but it became second nature to ignore the mask and read his body. He gave so much away in his body posture that she had thought it almost unnecessary to have a face, but that one quirk of the eyebrow, expressing his inquiry to her gasp, while at the same time, daring her to ask it, made her wonder how much she really missed when she spoke with Erik.

She hazarded a glance towards his face again, curiously. His emotions were easy to read there, perhaps because he had never practiced screening them from his face when he had a veil to hide behind all of his life. They drifted across his face like slick oil on water; emotions drifted up to the surface rather than being buried deep within. Right at that moment, he had a look of real panic on his face, and she wondered why. There was no one in the hallway but for them, and they were using one of his secret passages, which assured them the greatest of secrecy as they passed through.

She squeezed his hand to reassure him, and though his face was filled with terror, the look of pure ecstasy passed over him, and he closed his eyes at her touch.

Her mouth dropped open in shock. She had not known that she could instill that sort of feeling on him.

"Erik, I do believe you've got something on your face," she said, teasing, as she tapped on the nose. It made a hollow noise as her fingernail clicked against it – fake, then. Of course it would be fake. It felt like the paper mâchés she used as props on stage.

He jerked a bit and his eyes widened in fear. He took her wrist and pushed it down. "I do believe quite a few people have them, now and again," he replied, and she was surprised to hear his voice lightly bantering with her, an expression not conveyed on his face.

She smiled coyly, hoping to calm him down a bit. His voice was calm enough, but if she were to put more stock in his voice or his face, she would trust his face more. He was a master over voices; he could lie just as easily as he could sing. "I hadn't noticed," she bantered. "Do many people have them, then?"

At last, he cracked a smile, and she inwardly sighed with relief. "I would imagine so. It makes them look quite normal. It is rather difficult, I've found, to not help but notice something that isn't there."

She smiled. "It's really quite ingenious, though," she said, dropping their playful manner. "I like it."

He beamed with her praise, his face positively gleaming so that it was almost grotesque with his skeletal features. She suppressed a shiver.

"Why are you wearing it, though?"

His face fell slightly, as if he hadn't wanted her to ask that question. "Just in case someone happens to see us," he muttered.

"Dressed properly for the occasion?" she goaded, remembering how he wouldn't let her dress for their adventure beyond his house. She felt entirely inappropriate in her simple housedress and lack of corset, and she wanted dearly for a hat. "I thought no one would see us."

He smirked a little, looking a little sheepish. "The difference between my preparation for the public and yours is a difference of three hours, my dear."

She flushed scarlet at that. "Well, perhaps if you had warned me – "

He placed a finger on her lips. "Hush, dear. It is just for precaution's sake. No need for people to actually believe that there is a ghost roaming the halls when he doesn't wish for the attention. Better for them to see a nearly normal man as opposed to a masked spectral."

His explanation made sense, but that didn't mean Christine couldn't still be irritated with him. Nevertheless, when Erik tugged on her hand to continue onwards, she dutifully followed.

They went up and up and up. She hadn't been paying attention to the first half of their journey, so she had no idea where she was as Erik navigated the unfamiliar halls. It seemed as though they had been going for longer than was expected to find a door to the street, so she suspected that he was taking her to some secluded area to allow her freedom to move about. Or perhaps even the roof.

She would like that. She hadn't seen the sky for a very long while.

He didn't disappoint.

When she thought she could go no further, Erik opened a door, and Christine felt a warm, brisk wind swirl around her, and she nearly cried with the overwhelming feeling of release. It was still quite dark like Erik's night-world, but it was very different. The stars glittered cheerfully, and the moon lavished them with her silvery beams, showering them with her wealth. The wind lifted her spirits and blew her tears away before they could fall.

Neither of them expected her reaction.

She took both of Erik's hands and sobbed into his thin chest, crying for all it was worth. She told herself that she was being ridiculous, that she was missing out on this golden opportunity. No doubt Erik was panicked. He had brought her up here to indulge her, reward her, perhaps. He had meant to make her happy, and she appreciated him for it, but she couldn't help her tears. When Erik had kept her down with him, she stayed with him with the surety that she would never see the sky again, and it made her exuberant soul sing with joy. She starved for this sort of thing, and she gulped at the air greedily.

Erik's still body eventually relaxed, and his arms enfolded her gingerly. Her tears eventually evaporated, and she leaned peacefully into him.

"Thank you, Erik," she said softly. "This is more than I could have ever asked for."

He smiled grimly. "Anything for you Christine," he replied. "Happy birthday."

She jerked back to look up at him in shock. "My birthday?" She felt like she'd been hit in the gut. Time had passed by so quickly underground, and now that she knew what day it was, she felt slightly disoriented.

He nodded, looking amused at her disbelief. "I thought you might want to see this," he said, turning her away from him. "It really is quite beautiful up here."

She looked out into the inky night and noticed that one side of the sky was beginning to blush.

"Dawn?" she asked incredulous. "But we had just had supper!"

He chuckled deep in his throat. The sound was rusty, as if he were unaccustomed to that sort of humor, and her mind was blown away by how pleasant it sounded to her ears. Much nicer than his maniacal laughter.

"I apologize, Christine," he said. "Living underground can throw off the natural cycles set by the sun." Time meant nothing in Erik's house.

She watched the rosy sky with eager anticipation, waiting for the sun to come up. She hadn't seen the sun for weeks, even months. She had been in the dark for all of summer, and she had long given up on seeing the sky or even the light of day ever again.

When the sun came up, everything, the rooftops, the clouds, the shining pinnacles of Paris' grand monuments, were washed in gold; it took her breath away. She could feel herself glowing with euphoria, and she was aware of Erik's eyes on her as she stared at the sun to drink in the sweet nectar of nature.

Never before had she ever seen a more beautiful sunrise.

She looked behind her when she could no longer look into the brightness of the sun. Her eyes were dazzled, but she could see Erik creeping away into the long shadows of the morning where night continued to cling. She beckoned to him, and he stepped tentatively over to her. His face, which was sordid in the nighttime shadows of his world, had a certain peculiarity to it in the magic of this morning. He was still very ugly, but if she had seen him passing by her on the streets, she imagined that she would not have looked twice at him. His near normalcy, though, made her remember the words spoken to her on that awful night of the scorpion; his wish deep inside that she had once believed he could never achieve but for his face.

_I want to live like everyone else._

And to think, at this very moment of calm and serenity, he _was_ very normal, like everyone else. He was very ugly, but it was very bearable with his false nose.

He approached her quietly and stopped an arm's length away. Slightly affronted by his distance, she reached for him, but he skirted away.

"I do not want to spoil your birthday present. It's nice to see you happy."

She beamed at him. "Then if this is my birthday present, let me do what I want," she said. "I want to remember this moment like this."

She reached for him again, and this time, he did not pull away. Her epiphany made her realize how long he had wished to have this, to have a wife to hold and love, and she wanted to help him achieve that. She wanted to make him happy.

She guided his hands to encircle around her waist, and she leaned back into him, facing towards the fiery sun.

They watched it rise together.


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Hello, dearies! I am back, returned from France, and I have to say that it was the most amazing experience of my life by far. I'm experiencing a sort of culture shock. I think my brain still can't comprehend that people here speak English and not French, and that it's not necessary to switch between languages. I did catch myself trying to say "Bonsoir" to the American customs.

It's good to be back, and I'm glad to be writing again. Really, I'm glad to have time to do _anything_ at all. Right now? My sister I are in the middle of a Harry Potter marathon before we go to see the movie. Woohoo!

Sorry this is short, but to compensate for the long wait (if you're still reading), I left a little surprise at the end.

* * *

Chapter 18

She was reluctant to leave the roof, but when the first carriage arrived an hour later, Erik told her that they had to go down. He had no problem navigating the hallways without a sound, but Christine was not born with the same catlike dexterity, and he told her as much. She took it with as much grace as her wounded pride would allow.

Back at the house, Christine determined that she would remain awake. Although she felt as though it were time to retire, her seeing the sunrise reminded her that it was not, and Erik found it all very amusing. When she yawned for the fifth time after he first suggested she go to bed, he turned to her and said, "Surely your sleep is slightly more important that keeping up a schedule, Christine? Go to bed."

She refused, saying that she couldn't possibly go to bed while the sun was in the sky. "Beside, how am I to celebrate my birthday if I sleep through the whole thing?"

She thought he would continue to press the matter, but he seemed oddly pleased by her response. Eagerly, he took her hands and lifted her from the divan.

"I have another present for you."

She followed him to the piano, where he sat down and began to play. It was a piece she was unfamiliar with, but the style was unmistakably Erik's.

"You wrote it," she said. He gave her a sidelong glance to see her reaction before he turned back to the keys. It was utterly different from the rest of his songs. It did not burn the soul to hear it, and it did not make the heart ache with total loneliness.

"Of course I wrote it," he said shortly, sounding as though nothing else could be conceivable, as if he wouldn't be caught dead playing works from other musical artists. Christine shook her head and said nothing of the times he played Mozart for her.

She sat down next to him and leaned her head on his shoulder. When he did not move, she impatiently tugged on his arm and he responded by draping it across her shoulders.

"Thank you," she murmured, whether for the music or for not pushing her away, neither could tell.

He said nothing. They sat in silence, carried in the flow of their own thoughts. After a while, Christine spoke.

"Erik, why a scorpion?"

"How do you mean?" he responded, his voiced laced with confusion.

She made a grab for his free hand and held it because her own hands felt too empty.

"Well, I suppose… Why was the scorpion safe, and not the grasshopper? I thought that scorpions were dangerous."

"Ah."

"'Ah,' what?" she demanded after a moment.

"Well, my dear, it's not to do with what they actually are, but what they symbolize."

Her brow crinkled. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

"I learned about this in Persia. A scorpion is good luck, a good omen. It also symbolizes fertility for a newly married couple. A scorpion is dangerous, yes, but I suppose its equivalent would be wishing someone to break their leg instead of wishing them luck."

She smiled at that.

"A grasshopper, while seemingly harmless on it's own, is a very bad omen. In the desert, a man must fight for his food. Coupled with the heat and dry weather, it's hard enough to grow food. A swarm of grasshoppers is a farmer's worst nightmare, because if they come, there is no hope for the food. A plague of grasshoppers is the cause of many deaths in Persia."

"I had wondered…" she murmured. "It didn't make sense at the time, but now it does."

They fell into silence again, and Christine began to wonder about Erik's life in Persia. Was it much like it was here in Paris? Did he haunt some building, or was he very powerful there? He had referenced to the slaughter there, and she wondered if it had been for his own amusement, or if it was something else. How long had he spent in Persia?

"Erik, how old are you?"

She could hear the frown in his voice as he replied. "I do not know. Perhaps fifty." He did not elaborate on the why's of his lack of knowledge.

"Do you have a last name?"

He chuckled. "Why so many questions, dear? You're so curious today."

She looked up at him and smiled sheepishly before she put her head back down. "I've come to realize I don't know you all that well."

"Questions can be dangerous, you know," he said, his tone dark. "I have not had a happy life."

"What could be so dangerous about a last name?" she asked.

"When I told you I was simply 'Erik,' I had not been lying to you. I have no last name."

"So that's your real name, then?"

"Any name Erik had before no longer lives with him now. Erik is who I am and who I will be until my death."

She shrugged. "Alright then, Erik. Could you adapt another name to it, or shall I be known only as 'Christine' from now on?"

He was silent for a few minutes reflecting on the true reason why she wanted to know his full name.

"Would 'Thenard' do for you?"

"Thenard would be lovely, thank you," she replied, tilting her head up to kiss his cheek, which was still bare from that morning.

He whirled in shock, one hand cupping his cheek where she had kissed him, the other gripping both her hands as if keeping her anchored next to him.

"Wha – did you just…"

Christine nodded, even though he couldn't manage to finish his sentence. "And if you must react like that every time, then I might not do it again," she teased. She wondered what had gotten into her, but she was too tired to care; tired body and soul, tired of denying Erik the wife he'd always wanted.

"But, why would you?" he asked.

"I am your wife, am I not?" she shot back.

He nodded dumbly.

She frowned as a thought crossed her mind. "Erik, have you never been married before?"

"No," he said breathlessly. "The shah offered, once, but then the sultana had her executed before anything could come of it."

Her smile slipped. "Oh," she said. "I'm sorry."

"Erik has many regrets, and her death is one of them. If I had never accepted, the sultana would never have gotten jealous, and I wouldn't have to have been the one to carry out her orders – but Erik must not speak of such morbid things! He had not been thinking!"

"I'm so sorry, Erik," she whispered, stroking his cheek. "I did not realize you had to… Oh, the poor girl!" Her eyes stung with tears for the poor unfortunate. "Did you love her?"

"No, Erik has never loved anyone in his whole life other than you – "

"Erik," she said, cutting him off. "It's fine if you did love her. I couldn't have possibly been your one and only love."

He shook his head. "You misunderstand. It was very difficult to feel love in Persia. Before that, no one had any sympathy for a boy with no face, and there was no one Erik could grow attached with."

"But the girl – "

"I had never met her. I couldn't have ever loved a face I had never seen."

She wasn't sure whether to be relieved or horrified at this bit of news. On the one hand, she wasn't sure how she would handle it if she knew he had been married before and had a basis of comparison on which to judge her. That, and when she heard at first that he almost got married at one point, she felt something flare up within her. It was not dissimilar to the time she thought that one of the chorus girls was flirting with Raoul.

On the other hand, she was horrified that the girl had to suffer such an awful death. To be executed – or murdered – by your own husband-to-be! Surely there couldn't be a worse fate.

"I have upset you, haven't I?" Erik asked.

"Well, yes!" she replied. "It's just… that poor girl…"

"Yes, that poor girl," he mimicked bitterly. "Poor in what way? Can you sympathize with her that she had to marry such a monster as me? Her death was a mercy. The sultana would never know how generous she was to her. She thought she was destroying my life by taking her away from me." His face twisted in anger or frustration.

"No, Erik," she interrupted before he could go any further in his tirade. "It is sad that she had to die so young, and for no clear reason on her part." She bowed her head and added quietly, "And I'm sorry that you had to be the one to do it."

He was silent for a moment, and Christine looked up to see he was staring straight ahead, crying silently. It shocked her and she reached up automatically to touch his tears. When her fingers brushed his cheek, he flinched away from her, but then seemed to change his mind and grabbed her hand to press it desperately against his face.

She wanted to ask him what the matter was, but it suddenly felt as though she had cotton in her mouth.

"Erik is… I'm…" He swallowed. "Thank you, Christine. I could not have asked for a better wife than you."

His sincerity made her delighted and nervous at the same time. He went into a monologue, but her stomach was flipping over itself and she couldn't pay attention to his words. She wished it would just sit still for a while instead of making her feel so nervous, but she couldn't seem to help it.

"Christine?"

After several moments, she realized that Erik had been seeking her attention for quite some time.

"You seem rather distracted. Have I said something to upset you?"

She shook her head quickly. "No, no, of course not. It's just that… I've realized that I really haven't been all that good a wife to you, is all."

He looked surprised at this. "Why would you think this of yourself? Why, you have offered everything you have for Erik, more than anyone would ever do for such a creature as me!"

"Erik, really, you mustn't say such things about yourself. I haven't been a good wife, and you know it."

He looked bemused, as if this fact were totally incomprehensible on his part. "How do you mean?"

She began ticking the reasons off in her mind: when she had betrayed him in favor of Raoul; when she broke her promise to fulfill their marriage through consummation; when she lied to Erik and hid the letter from him. "Remember what we said to each other at the alter?" she asked him.

He nodded.

"You've honored every promise you made there, and I have yet to fulfill any of mine, and I'm sorry."

The look he gave her was completely thunderstruck that he didn't appear able to speak to her. He passed a hand over his eyes, looked at her again, and stared pointedly at her wrists which were still bandaged.

"You seem to forget, my dear," he said, his voice low. "Erik is a very dangerous man and can get very carried away when he is in a temper. You say I have fulfilled my marriage vows to you, but I have done nothing of the sort. It seems that I can do nothing but hurt you."

"But you have done more than me in the way promises go!"

"Did I not promise to be true 'in good times and in bad'?"

She nodded.

"Perhaps your memory is not quite working as it should, because I remember a week or so ago, I lost my temper at you, and it was nearly detrimental."

"It was my fault, Erik. I should have been honest with you."

"Oh, so you are finally admitting that you were meeting with your lover," he said bitterly.

"No, what I'm saying has nothing to do with that. I should have kept all of my promises with you, and I haven't done so. It's a new year for me, and I mean to start fresh." She took his hand and kissed it.

He stared at her, hardly daring to breathe. When she smiled at him, he exhaled sharply. Her smile was so exquisite; he could hardly help it when his hand moved up of its own accord to touch it.

"Have you ever been kissed before?"

The question took him so off guard that he jumped back as though he'd been burned. The emotions coursing through him were so electrifying that he could hardly stand to be near her. As he got up to move to the other side of the room, he found that Christine's hand was still holding on to his, tethering him to the piano bench.

"N-no," he stammered, and he stared hungrily at her mouth. It looked so enticing! "Can…can I?" he asked nervously.

She glanced down, suddenly shy, and nodded. When he didn't move, she looked up curiously. "Well?" she asked.

He really wanted to, more than anything in the world, but the fact that he was death personified and she was as sweet and beautiful as a fresh morning, he couldn't bring himself to taint her.

"Erik is not worthy," he muttered. "He has no right."

She turned his head so that it was mere inches away from her own. He could feel her breath on his lips. "Erik, you are my husband; you have every right."

When she pressed her lips against his, they remained still for a breathless moment before Erik gave in and devoured her mouth. His passion made her a little bit afraid, but she didn't dare to break away. Instead, she returned his kisses, her emotions torn between revulsion and desire.

Erik's eyes were feverish when he pulled away and his smile revealed his ecstasy. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before, and he had never had the heart to subject any woman to the horror of his visage. Christine had made him the happiest of all men.

Christine only felt more confused than she had ever before supposed.


End file.
